When I buy a thriller, I buy it for my whole family. That means I go to Costco for the sole purpose of buying seven copies of the same Dean Koontz novel every three months.
Now though, it looks like I'll have to resort to other methods of bulk book buying. Sam's Club will have my vote after January of 2025, as Costco's announced that they'll only stock books during peak holiday shopping season. Phooey!
Costco's shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books — new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned — also created more work.
So the decision to mitigate the cost of human labor will likely mean less overhead. It'd be reasonable to assume that this decision will lead to additional corner cutting and further layoffs. But wait, I have a solution, what if Costco invented some kind of automatic book gun to neatly lay out all those James Patterson paperbacks?
"Costco across the country was a big outlet for books," he said. "There are now fewer and fewer places to buy books in a retail environment."
The change may also impact Costco customers, particularly those who live in areas without a bookstore. And because many books at Costco were impulse buys, some of those sales may not shift over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Instead, they might not happen at all.
Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter, NY Times
The future isnt't looking great for the publishing industry. Book gun, anyone?
