Unlike buyers of new books, fans of second-hand books continue to grow. In bookstores or online, the small second-hand market is making headway, sometimes to the chagrin of publishers.
A veritable Alibaba cave, the oldest second-hand book store in Strasbourg opened its doors in 1956. “There are more than 30,000 books in the store“, says, not without pride, Yves Suss, at its head for 56 years.
The second-hand book market is doing well. In 2022, 80 million second-hand books will be purchased, or 20% of the overall market. “A book cannot be thrown awaytestifies a regular at the store. When I have read a book, I pass it on to my neighbor who also loves detective novels, then she passes it on to her brother-in-law, etc.“A readers’ channel which today represents one in five books purchased.
Faced with the high price of new books, second-hand books have become essential. With its 350 million euros in turnover, it represents 9% of the publishing market. “This allows us to avoid throwing away certain books that could have gone in the trash, we give them a second life“, explains Camille Hager, manager of the Strasbourg branch of Recyclivre, which collects 12,000 books each month and resells them online.
Faced with the good old shelves and the smell of paper, the online book business has managed to establish itself. One in two used books is sold online, on established platforms such as Amazon, Momox, or Vinted.
To stop this expansion, Emmanuel Macron proposed a special contribution during the Book Festival in April in order to “to protect the single price of the book“. This tax would only apply to online platforms, deemed unfair by the National Publishing Union.
A measure that does not delight the online bookstore Recyclivre, while the number of second-hand buyers continues to grow: “we have a fairly elderly audience, who prefer to buy second hand at low prices, this promotes the social and solidarity economy.“According to a SOFIA study, the main motivation for 76% of second-hand buyers is to save money.
