[tt] Entrepreneur: 10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years

[Premise Checker]

The two used book shops in Bethesda have recently shut down. In the case 
of Georgetown Books (which originally was in Georgetown), the owner simply 
retired. Even so, his profits came from the excellent posters he 
reproduced and not the books. In the case of Second Story Books (which 
began on a second story, thought it is rare to find an employee who 
remembers 25-30 years back), there just wasn't enough foot traffic in its 
latest location to support the store. The one on Dupont Circle, heavily 
foot-trafficed, remains, as does the warehouse store in Rockville. This 
store has had something like ten locations over the years.

This is sad, since you simply can't browze with your web browzer the way 
you can in a book shop.

On 2007-10-06, Allen Smith opined [message unchanged below]:

> Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 18:26:51 -0400
> From: Allen Smith <easmith at beatrice.rutgers.edu>
> To: tt at postbiota.org
> Subject: Re: [tt] Entrepreneur: 10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years
> 
> In message <Pine.NEB.4.64.0710060621210.15076 at panix2.panix.com> (on 6
> October 2007 06:24:22 -0400), checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) wrote:
>> 10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years
>> http://www.entrepreneur.com/extinction/index.html
>> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/printthis/184288.html
>
>> Used bookstores: They've been closing fast, and those that are
>> still open are relying on what's making them obsolete: the
>> internet. A used bookstore used to be the place to find that
>> beloved, out-of-print children's book you used to read 17 times a
>> day until your little sister flushed it down the toilet. Now you
>> just type that title in a search engine and order it within
>> minutes.
>> Odds of survival in 10 years: Some of them will still be eking out
>> an existence, but the handwriting is on the wall.
>
> Umm... used bookstores are doing business online (see
> http://www.abebooks.com); indeed, I have an aunt who, until she got
> interested in going back into the oil business (she and her husband are
> Ph.D.s in chemistry with expertise in areas like drilling mud
> composition...), owned 3 used bookstores, 1 of which was online-only (a
> warehouse, basically), but the other two were physical shops (partially as a
> _source_ of books!). One interesting change is that the larger ones are
> doing _both_ new _and_ used books, like Powell's.
>
>      -Allen
>
> -- 
> Allen Smith                       http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/
> February 1, 2003                               Space Shuttle Columbia
> Ad Astra Per Aspera                     To The Stars Through Asperity