Borsenverein chief warns on German independents

After 2016 brought a welcome boost with sales up 1%, the German book industry couldn’t carry the momentum into 2017. Sales were down 4.5% in the first quarter and the mood is subdued. An industry conference last week in Leipzig didn’t do much to cheer up booksellers either; especially not when one of their own concluded that "the good years are over“ and worse is to come.

The dire warning was issued by Heinrich Riethmüller, head of German trade association Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels since 2013, who is also an experienced bookseller. Together with his nephew Christian Riethmüller, the 61-year-old leads the family business Osiander, a regional chain of bookstores with 39 branches in southern German.

In his keynote speech in Leipzig, Riethmüller noted that he expects more independent bookstores to close, inevitably leading to a much smaller bookish presence in the high street. Following reluctant consumer spending and notably lower traffic in the high street in general since December following the continuing migration to online shopping, "the trend will continue downhill“, he said. He also anticipating that closures will particularly hit what many see as the core of independent bookselling in Germany - medium-sized towns where at present three to four bookstores share the local market.

Riethmüller's pessimistic outlook is supported by recent Börsenverein data. Membership is gradually declining – last year it was below 3,000 bookstores for the first time – down 3.3% to 2,964 bookshops by the end of 2016. Not good news for a trade association whose income is largely dependent on member fees, and made even worse by the fact that the number of publishers also fell to an all-time low in 2016, again by 3.3% to 1,688.

On a brighter note Riethmüller mentioned promising activities put into action by an increasing number of German booksellers, namely improving the customer’s quality of stay in the store, further refining multi-channel services and becoming more adept at using customer data through CRM systems.

All three have served Osiander well in recent years. Founded in 1596, the Riethmüllers have made Germany’s second oldest bookshop a huge success story with record sales of €79.4m in 2016, up 66%. Owned by the foundation Osiander Stiftung, the chain continues to grow based on sound judgment combined with willingness to take chances when they come up. An example is the recent acquisition of four well-established bookshops from local competitor Herwig that will come into effect in September and takes Osiander’s store tally for 43 – and counting. Since 2015 Osiander has also been a member of the Tolino e-book alliance.