 Retailers told digital book sales ‘window’ may close this year
Retailers continue to await an announcement about a digital book-selling option for Christian stores, more than six months after CBA identified it as the channel’s top priority. “We working as fast as we can. We are hoping to have a solution as fast as we can,” CBA Executive Director Curtis Riskey said in January. A group of retail representatives was evaluating about 10 possible systems that could be adopted, which involved asking the providers how they might be adapted to create an industry-wide platform for Christian stores to offer e-books, he said. “There are a lot of providers who can allow a store to sell digital products, but we know as an industry we need differentiation,” Riskey said. “If it’s simply a transaction, then we become a me-too and there are other me-toos out there. “What we are looking at is how can we maintain the relationship with our core customer base, but also give them something that is unique and different—which sets our Christian retail channel apart,” he added. CBA set a digital platform as its
No. 1 concern at the International Christian Retail Show last June, pulling together publisher and retailer groups to identify possible programs and then evaluate them. Since then, digital book sales have continued to rise, with a huge spike in sales of e-readers at Christmas. Riskey’s update on the CBA initiative came at Munce Group’s CPE (Christian Products Expo) in Hershey, Pa., held Jan. 16-18, where independent Christian retailers heard that they must develop a digital strategy soon if they are to have a future. “It’s your only hope for competing,” said David Amster, CEO and chief innovation officer at Integra Interactive, in a digital workshop session on “How to Stay Relevant to Your Customers.” Sharing statistics of the continuing rise in digital music sales and the ongoing slump in CD purchases, Amster urged stores not to give up on the category because it was still significant in drawing customers who might buy other things such as greeting cards while in stores. “Retailers have relationship with their customers, and if we are not able to help them sell to customers the way those customers want to be sold to or to meet their needs, which are changing, then we will lose out on an opportunity,” Riskey told Christian Retailing. “We know that with the music industry, that opportunity passed us. We don’t want that to happen again.” But he cautioned against “hysteria” about digital sales. As recently as last summer, physical CD sales outstripped digital music purchases, Riskey said. “You won’t hear that in the national media. We don’t want to get into panic mode, but we also want to address the issue, knowing the customers that our members and retailers have worked so hard to create. ... We want to help them maintain those relationships.” In his workshop, Amster said that the window of opportunity for physical retail to be involved in selling e-books on any type of significant basis “is probably this year.” The key was to be a change agent, he said, helping customers who may not be in the digital world learn about it. “If they learn about it outside of your store, you have probably lost them as a customer,” he said. “But if you help them to engage and provide the means by which they can buy (digital products), you will probably hold onto them, if not forever, for a period of time.” Amster said that his company’s myMEDIA BurnBar—currently in more than 400 stores—would add an MP3-purchase service in the second quarter and e-books in the second half of the year. The company would also be introducing a branded MP3 player in the $30-$40 price range, he said.
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