Websites are gaining market share in the sale of books in France, despite public policies to protect bookstores, show figures released Thursday by the Ministry of Culture.
Before the Paris Book Festival (April 21-23), the ministry revealed to the press the data compiled by the Kantar market research institute.
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In 2022, merchant websites (Amazon.fr, fnac.com, chapter.com, etc.) rose to 21.9% market share (+1.9 points in one year).
This is as much as in 2020, a year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and long weeks of bookstore closures.
The Internet had reached 10% of the market in 2009 and exceeded 20% in 2017.
This is still less than bookstores, which account for 22.9% of the market in 2022. Since 2006 (first year of available data), when it peaked at 25.8%, booksellers' market share has fallen to a low of 21.5% in 2013, before rising again.
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Biggest sellers: specialized supermarkets
For the eleventh year in a row, the biggest sellers of books according to Kantar are specialized supermarkets (Fnac, Cultura, E.Leclerc cultural spaces, etc.) with 27.7%.
This market share has tended to increase for the past fifteen years, but has fallen slightly since its peak at 28.6% in 2020. Hypermarkets and supermarkets weigh in at 18.7% in 2022. The rest is divided between a mail order, clubs (such as France Loisirs) threatened with extinction (3.2%) and other businesses not specializing in books (5.4%).
France is the most advanced country to protect a network of independent bookstores which it claims to be the densest in the world, with 3,500 points of sale.
In order to encourage people to buy their books in bookstores, a law adopted in December 2021 will prohibit from October 2023 almost free shipping for online book orders of less than 35 euros.
The American Amazon said it was hostile to it.
“
We are concerned about the impact this measure will have on reading and on readers, especially those living in rural areas and small towns.
These territories are often devoid of bookstores and today represent 46% of book shipments for Amazon
, ”commented its French subsidiary in a press release on Sunday.
