Book trade kept its head above water with price increases in 2023
Published: Thursday, Jan 11th 2024, 14:20
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Prices in the book trade in German-speaking Switzerland rose by an average of 3.1 percent in 2023. Against this backdrop, sales fell only slightly. This is because significantly fewer books were sold.
The Swiss-German book industry had an "average" year, writes the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV) in a press release on Thursday. Initial figures for the past year show what this means.
According to the report, turnover in bookstores and online sales fell by 0.7 percent. However, the number of books sold fell much more sharply, by 3.7 percent. The fact that sales in 2023 were almost the same as in the previous year is due to the fact that booksellers and publishers increased prices by a total of 3.1 percent. E-books have even become 9.5 percent more expensive.
Higher costs
With the price increases, retailers and publishers have passed on a large proportion of their own higher costs to customers. The SBCA points to the increased costs for paper, energy, logistics and rents. This is a challenge for the industry, "which traditionally generates rather low profits," the SBCV said in its press release.
The decline in book sales extends to almost all categories, including e-books (-0.3 percent) - with one exception: travel books. The association suspects that "there is still pent-up demand for travel after the pandemic". The SBCA also points out that the figures for the book trade reflect the situation for the retail trade as a whole, which suffered from generally poor consumer sentiment in 2023.
Ultimately, Christmas sales, which traditionally boost the annual balance sheet, did nothing to change this. On the other hand, sales in December 2023 fell by 3.8% compared to the previous year. The dip was driven in particular by the non-fiction segment with a 10.3% drop in sales.
SBCV is planning to publish the detailed Market Report 2023 next March.
©Keystone/SDA
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