Is it wrong to buy a discount book?

The matter of "buying discount books" is really easy to be attacked in this era. It seems that "I choose cheap goods" and "I am guilty." In fact, judging from the events of 1111 discounts on e-commerce and the closure of independent bookstores, it is true It's easy to feel "blame".

So "Is it wrong to buy a discount book?" Of course not!

Whether from the removal of the squirrel culture and the bottle culture from momo to the collective closure of independent bookstores, they are not blaming the behavior of "buying discount books" , but the problems that extend too much and affect the entire publishing industry are obvious. , it's just that when you express your position, it is easy to give people the kind of "you buy a discount book, you should be damned!" It depends on what the person who expresses it says and how consumers interpret it.

It cannot be denied that whether it is from the publishing industry to the independent bookstore industry, people often give people an arrogant attitude: "Reading has a threshold", "Reading should be in style", "Reading is limited to entertainment that can only be enjoyed by certain people", "Reading is easy." Literary people are not called scholars", "people who read idol books, comics, BL, people who read dream practice, people who read psychological inspiration... As long as they are not related to literature, history, philosophy and sociology, they are not called reading", don't say it Readers of a bunch of old-school paper books simply don’t think e-books are books at all! (Yes, it will give people the kind of arrogance that they really look down on!)

If you look at the product "book" from the business model, it is just a commodity. The most important thing for businessmen is to "sell the goods", I don't think anyone will deny this. But we have to look back. Are all goods suitable for sale in this sales model? Just ask one question: "Will low prices really increase the number of readers?" (essentially, "Will more people buy books?") The answer is obvious from the start of the blogging swipe war. Conclusion: The price does not increase the number of readers.

If discounting can increase the number of readings, why is it that there is almost no profit or sales? Is this really an "accurate" and "useful" "marketing model"? If discounts can increase the number of people who buy books, why are there so many discount wars, but the number of people who read books has not increased? Still need to keep slashing all the way down?

When most people refer to the book industry from publishing to independent bookstores and say, "Ah, why don't you just sell the book, isn't it bad to sell one more copy?" Counting on you, what exactly are you north of?" At the same time, perhaps we should ask:

"So, who will absorb the discounted profits?"

If you are an e-commerce platform, you could have earned 30 yuan per book, but then you only made 5 yuan due to the self-absorption of discounts, so who would you ask for with a profit margin of 25 yuan? Businessmen are not idiots . In business, how can they absorb the less-earned profits to the end of the world!

The most common sales model on the market is this:

 Adding one yuan is one more item, so the original price of 199 yuan was directly changed to 399 yuan, and one more item was added. In fact, consumers did not earn it, and they spent more time comparing prices, and often bought two back. I thought I was taking advantage of it; if you have the habit of buying the same kind of goods, except for a few shopping festivals that are relatively large and have more hyped discounts, you really seem to have bought them cheap, but carefully observe every time when there are small specials , the pricing has also been quietly added up. If you don't change the packaging, the marketing model will be put on the shelves again, so that you think it is new and the price is expensive. In fact, it is just for such a discount space. The price of the marketing method Tune up!

And there are many such examples. If you can't make a certain profit, you will start to limit the discount threshold, and pass it on to consumers. You will start to ask for upstream discounts (that is, to compress the profits of upstream manufacturers) or directly from the actual income from the exploitation of employees. , Welfare to make up for the lack of profit after discount.

Many many many many many people will ask this most common question:

Why do other products "can be played with discounts like this" but "books can't"?

This is probably the reason why people who buy discount books often feel "discriminated". "Why don't you buy books?" Would you not buy them because the prices of necessities for people's livelihood have risen? Not right! At most, go to more than a few or don't buy too good brands, from Shujie to Mayflower, from advertised organic to not organic, from counter cosmetics to open-price makeup, from a fifteen-yuan egg to Ten eggs of thirty or forty yuan... (There is no discriminatory comparison here, just talk about the price.)

But can books do this? I can't buy a 600 yuan photo book today, can I find "can replace" "exactly the same content (but different author)" for only 300 yuan? Of course not possible! Every book is unique, Wu Bai's photo album is different from Mayday's! So, what should I do if I want to buy this 600 yuan photography book? One is the discount war, the second is used books, the third is the library, and the fourth is not to buy! (Sort by price selection) Don't tell me that "The Cultivation of a Lazy Girl" can be replaced by "The Sixtieth Boy".

Please don't compare any "fungible" product to a book. It's not that the product "book" is more noble , but that there is almost no "fungibility"! Otherwise, why keep discounting? Isn't it that only "price" can be compared?

Furthermore, when all the people are asking: "momo (e-commerce) didn't ask you to absorb it, what are you mourning for?" Let's go back and ask the most cruel thing: "If momo will have 66 If there is no discount for one day, will you still buy books?” (Don’t forget, toilet paper, cosmetics, eggs, and even the optical shop that someone compares, you won’t buy it without a discount, don’t you need it?)

Many industry-side problems really have nothing to do with "buying discount books" or "is it wrong?"

In the era of low wages, young people in the publishing industry "can't see the future" are essentially the same as people of the same generation. People can understand the "poor and busy generation" and "low salary", but it is difficult for anyone to understand the sharp decline in the reading population of the book industry, and the discount war has made no profit, so that the basic salary of employees is deeply felt. hopeless". When did we not scold those who opened bookstores and wrote books: "Your ideal is not my ideal, why should the staff follow you to get the salary that is not enough to eat and suffer?" Otherwise, no one will buy the book, or when someone like this speaks out and hopes to stop the discount war in which there is no blood and no blood to flow, they are directly accused of "can't afford to play" or "don't give it to play"!

Then "is it wrong to buy a discount book?" Of course not!

When we hit back hard at the closure of publishing houses and independent bookstores and felt that they "can't afford to play at all", don't they have the right to speak up and express their positions for their rights? "I don't want my book/bookstore to be screwed up with discounts?" Some people even think "You don't open a store on 1111 just so I'm going to buy discounts from e-commerce", in response to the series of independent bookstores collectively closing for one day. This event is in In the eyes of those who don't understand, it is "right in the middle", but in fact it is: "Anyway, no one will come to buy the store, everyone will go to the e-commerce to grab it!" Why bother to open a store by yourself, wait for the door, no one, no income , Close the store!

A friend in the industry asked me a very direct and pointed question: "When independent bookstores accuse e-commerce companies that the price of books is higher than the price of their own books, have you ever thought about why others have profit margins to fight this kind of discount war?" ( Don't forget that e-commerce has a very big backing behind them.)

I would like to answer this question together: "Are all bookmakers and book sellers the best to have strong capital in order to make books and sell books?" It is exactly what people who buy discount books want to ask It's exactly the same: "Do people who buy books and read books have to have a certain amount of spending power to buy books and read books?" If these two questions are negative, then what should be solved?

"Low price" has never been the way to "solve" the "must" and "not in life options" of "books". Discount wars seem to "can", "sell" "many books", but those who read, buy, make, and sell books all know that "books" are no longer the supreme entertainment option, nor "the only" "A single way to get "information" and "knowledge", what kind of low price do you have to get to increase the number of "books"? If "low price" is not the solution to "no one wants to buy books", where else can we change and find a new way out? I think this is the most fundamental thing that needs to be solved! (or changed question)

There is nothing wrong with "buying a discount book".

The question is who made this discount war go to pieces? Whether it is the announcement of the publishing house or the closure of the independent bookstore, it is only a position expressed in this discount chaos. Who is the real problem? Definitely not in the consumer, more likely: maybe not in the channel!

Photo: My handmade silk print bookmark!