I walked by the store yesterday and was initially sad to see they were closing... or were they "closing"? I guess they really are closing! I went to mu favourite section to see if I could get a good deal with the 30% off discount... NOPE! The book was STILL unaffordable (for me), and I knew if I wanted to make the effort, it was definitely cheaper on-line. The point is... if I was willing to make the effort. If it was cheap enough, I would have just bought the book, which is the power that a physical store location has... people walking in and randomly seeing something they want and walking out a customer... if the price is right. And the price has never been right at Oscar's for me.

It is nothing to do with them being a book store... it is their business model. I visited a great used bookstore in a very small out-of-the-way town in BC, and was flabbergasted how the guy made a living, with only 2 months of tourism a year... "90% of my sales are on-line". SO... if some guy in a small town in the mountains seems to have embraced the new era of sales more successfully than a store in a wannabee world city, best of luck to them!