The Amazon effect: How independent booksellers are fighting back

As the online giant reaches its 25th birthday on 5 July, James Moore finds out how the small brick-and-mortar sellers have managed to compete in the face of plummeting prices on the internet

One year after buying Bookshop on the Heath in Blackheath, southeast London, Ian Irvine remains upbeat about the industry (James Moore)

Could they even make Notting Hill today? This was the question one of my editors asked with the approach of Amazon’s 25th birthday. For those unfamiliar with the movie, which is not to everyone’s taste, it’s a Bafta-winning romcom centred on a chance encounter between a Hollywood star, played by Julia Roberts, and Hugh Grant’s independent bookseller, whose fictional shop is located in the fashionable west London locale.

The question was raised because of the impact the rise of Amazon has had on high street bookshops. It has been huge and could be categorised as catastrophic, disastrous, or devastating. Take your pick. Figures from the Booksellers Association show that the UK and Ireland have lost more than 1,000 independent bookshops since 1995, in excess of half of the BA’s membership.

Several chains have also gone. Borders is perhaps the most high-profile example of an Amazon-related failure, but a number of smaller and regionally based outfits have disappeared too. They include Sussex Stationers, James Thin and Bookland, all of which were once fixtures on the high streets of the regions in which they operated; pleasant places to go and browse awhile. Yet the 2018 figures brought a ray of light for the embattled sector. They show an increase of 15 shops over the 868 recorded in 2017, one shop above the nadir of 867 recorded in the previous year.