A significant percentage of American book buyers turn to used books to get the titles they want or need at a substantial discount.
About 10 per cent of U.S. households bought at least one used book between April and December of last year. In total, these households purchased roughly 110 million used books or about $400 million in dollars spent, according to data released at BookExpo America by Ipsos BookTrends.
Used books accounted for roughly 13% of unit volume and 5% of dollars spent on trade books (excluding children's books). Projecting purchase trends for the full year, Ipsos BookTrends estimates that American consumers bought about 145 million used books last year, for about $533 million.
"Why should publishers need to know about used books? Many have told me that they can't publish against them," said Barrie Rappaport, manager of Ipsos BookTrends, an ongoing tracking service by Ipsos-Insight, a member of the Ipsos global marketing research group. "All publishers, however, sell against them. Your customers, the retailer, also sell against them."
"In today's competitive marketplace -- and as part of each company's strategic planning process -- marketers must fully understand what drives all consumer book-buying behavior," Rappaport said.
Nearly one-third of book buying households purchased both a new and a used book during the last nine months of 2002. Among used book buyers, most of who purchase both used and new books during the year, one out of every three book purchases was for a used book.
"The typical used book buying household looks like that of a typical new book buyer," Rappaport noted.
"Perhaps retailers should evaluate their competitive situation and decide if they need to stock used books. Will it increase or decrease customer loyalty? Regardless, it will be interesting to see if customers continue to purchase used books at today's pace or if that pace, in fact, accelerates."