Inside Books: Is Oxfam the Amazon of the High Street?

Emily Rhodes

Friday, 27th January 2012

When I read an article in the Telegraph recently, which pointed out that Oxfam is the third biggest retailer of books in the UK, I got a shock similar to when I learnt, last year, that The Bookseller had named Sainsbury’s chain bookseller of the year.

It feels peculiar to think of brands like Oxfam and Sainsbury’s as lead players in the book world. If I think of bricks-and-mortar bookshops, I think of the big chains like Waterstones, Blackwell’s and WH Smith. And I think of the independents, like Daunt’s, Foyles, and other small local shops. Supermarkets and charity shops are completely different operations. So the news that they are competing so successfully in the book market makes me wonder if they’re doing something very well indeed, or if the field is sloped in their favour.

The Oxfam bookshop is a very clever concept. It is far more than just a place to buy books. It provides an easy way to get rid of old, surplus books. Unwanted presents, shelf-cloggers and dust-gathering piles can either be dropped at a local shop or put in one of over 750 book banks dotted around the UK. Giving away books to Oxfam feels like doing a good deed. Rather than being wasteful by throwing something away, you’re recycling, giving those books a second lease of life. And you’re raising money for charity to boot. At the risk of sounding cynical, the feel-good element of donating to charity really is a winning asset. You donate books on the one hand, and on the other you give money to charity when you buy a book. It’s a win-win.

As a charity, Oxfam enjoys several fiscal advantages over trade bookshops. For a start, it is staffed mostly by volunteers so there isn’t the same outlay of wages. It also pays far lower business rates on its premises than other bookshops — often as little as 20 per cent. Its biggest commercial advantage is that it doesn’t have to pay for its stock, whereas an independent bookshop pays around 60 per cent of a book’s Recommended Retail Price to the publisher or wholesaler. When a book is new and pristine, Oxfam can still sell it well below the RRP, lower even than the price of a new book when discounted online in some cases.

It’s a wonderful thing that a charity is doing so well in straightened times. But it can only be alarming when a business grows to possess such a huge market share, regardless of whether it’s a charity. It would be a shame if Oxfam became the Amazon of the High Street due to aggressive tactics and pricing, so perhaps it’s time to look at the playing field.

First, when a book is sold at Oxfam, the author receives nothing. One can argue that the author will have got his or her royalty when the book was sold for the first time, but it doesn’t quite seem fair that the book is being sold and read a second time and yet the author doesn’t get any reward. After all, if an author is paid (currently 6.05 pence) each time the same book is borrowed from a library, surely the principle holds for each time the same book is sold? I suppose some writers might not mind waiving a fee, given that it’s for a charitable cause, but they should at least have that option. Perhaps a system should be set up along similar lines to the system that libraries use, only it would be Oxfam, not the government, who pays the royalty to authors.

Several booksellers object to what Tim Godfray, chairman of the Booksellers Association, calls Oxfam’s ‘unfair’ advantage thanks to their ‘preferential fiscal benefits’. Certainly, if customers don’t mind whether their book is nearly new or new, then it is hard to see why they wouldn’t take their business to Oxfam, pay far less money and donate to charity, instead of spending more in an independent bookshop. How on earth can an independent bookshop — which has to pay full business rates, publishers and staff — compete with Oxfam’s set-up? But the fact is: people would rather support a charity than an independent bookshop. It’s a great shame for bookshops. At the very least, independent bookshops should be offered the helping hand of the same reduced business rates enjoyed by Oxfam bookshops.

Susan Hill voiced an interesting perspective when she wrote in the Spectator two years ago that Oxfam are ‘thugs and bullies’. Her concern wasn’t so much the competition with independent bookshops, but with Oxfam taking away business from local charity bookshops. It is certainly hard to imagine how a small charity shop in aid of a local hospice can compete with an Oxfam bookshop, an outlet of a well-oiled machine that has donations of 20,000 books a day. As an attempt to even this out, local councils could provide ‘book recycling’ facilities alongside Oxfam’s book banks. Books donated to the council’s book bank could then be distributed to local charity shops, thereby increasing their donations.

Or, of course, we could just ignore this giant in our midst, and keep on blindly giving Oxfam our books and buying cheap books from them. But be warned ... if this trend continues, we will find ourselves in something of a dystopia where books can only be bought online on Amazon or in Oxfam.

Emily Rhodes works in an independent bookstore in London and is writing a novel. She blogs at Emily Books and tweets @EmilyBooksBlog.

Blog Tags: Charity , Inside Books , Publishing