Abstract
It has been obvious over the past few years that the traditional book industry is in decline, especially because of the rise of the digital economy and particularly eBooks, online shopping and social media. Despite efforts from the British government to encourage bookshops to favor culture for the whole population (UK government, 2013), the development of eBooks has been constant over the past years, threatening the frequentation of local physical bookshops. (See Appendix 2 – eBooks 2011 sales) For this very branch Waterstones, it is a real challenge since it is located in the student area of Plymouth.
Students and even university staff are more likely to be used to new technologies like eBooks than other types of population. The problem is that eBooks are only available online and cannot be purchased in store, which would help the shop frequentation. Similarly, the competition of online bookshops (Amazon, Bookstore or even Waterstones online) makes the frequentation of this branch declining, even if the tax scandal Amazon has known may be a positive outcome for traditional bookshops such as Waterstones.
