One of the sectors hardest hit by the economic crisis are bookstores which, since it was not an essential good, suffered a sharp drop in sales, as readers chose to reread a book on the shelf or resort to loans.
In this sense, Sol, an employee of a bookstore in the city, told El Marplatense that “as the situation in the country is, it has dropped a lot and It is sold at the beginning of the month when people receive their salaries, but after the 15th it starts to decline and at the end of the month there is nothing.”
Likewise, Silvia, manager of another establishment, pointed out that “the book has a fixed price, the publisher stipulates what the sales price is, what your profit is and for this reason there is a discrepancy, An imbalance is beginning to be seen and salaries have not risen in proportion to the other services.”
“In the past, a long weekend was looked forward to, but is now lower than a normal sales day. Maybe this last one saw little movement,” he added.
Translated into numbers, “for now it is still quite negative compared to the same time last year, losses range between 25 and 30% most of the time. The sale of school books this year was very noticeable,” added Germán, a worker in the sector.
Due to this situation, “we have several promotions with cards, The quota is used a lot and for the moment we can solve it and also bank promotions. Cash is the same because people use virtual wallets,” explained Sol.
As for the most chosen books, “The main thing is the novels of better-known authors or books like those by Gabriel Rolón. Also the occasional political essay, it is not the most common, but if it is a media personality, yes. Children’s books are still very important in our chain,” said Germán.
“There is a new sector of young people looking for books on economics and economic development. Before there were political books that stood out and sold any amount, but today that practically does not exist,” he concluded.
