“One of the biggest screw-ups in the history of book retail”? by Dennis Johnson

A recent Simba Information report (subscription required) “posits that the decrease in the number of bookstores that we saw in 2011 did not lead to a corresponding growth in ebook sales,” notes Brian Howard in a story for Book Business magazine. “This suggests that the showroom effect — where customers discover books at a bricks-and-mortar store and then buy them online — is real, and etailers have a vested interest in the success of physical bookstores.”

The observation prompts Howard to speak with Michael Norris, one of Simba’s senior analysts, who details the notion with some remarkable observations — including that “The growth in digital hasn’t been making up for losses in print sales,” because ebooks “haven’t really, by themselves, created new readers. They’ve altered the DNA of the consumers the industry already has.”

Particularly trenchant — and merciless — are his comments about the implications of showrooming on the current bricks-and-mortar retail scene:

The thing that I worry about with Barnes & Noble is that they have a tremendous asset in their stores, and their stores are exactly why the NOOK has done so well up to this point. They need to figure out ways to make the two divisions work more closely together, as opposed to working on an odd solution to separate the NOOK business from everything else.

He’s even tougher on Waterstones, confirming your worst concern about its decision to partner with Amazon: