genialokal.de is backed by over 750 owner-managed bookshops across Germany. Since 2015, the joint umbrella brand has stood for the goal of strengthening the local book trade, with 80% of users using the delivery option “click&collect” to pick up their order from their local book store.
In France, I believe that Place des libraires and Librairies indépendantes have a similar system. There are also smaller, local bookshop networks like Librest.
I’ve never ordered on one of those sites, but I’ve used Place des libraires a few times to check if a book was in stock nearby. Most of the time, when I want a book, there’s no emergency, so I just walk to the nearest bookshop and place an order it if they don’t already have it in stock. I only buy used or foreign books online.
This is really cool. I moved to Austria from a country that doesn’t basically have Amazon and ordering anything from closest “Amazon country” costs way more than local online shops, but I’ve taken a stance to continue avoiding Amazon.
So far so good. Initiatives like this will help to have other options!
In Benelux we also have Bol.com as an Amazon alternative.
I have never in my life purchased anything from Amazon and am fully intending to keep it that way.
In Belgium, there’s Librel but I think it’s only available for the french speaking part of the country.
UK (and I think Ireland) have uk.bookshop.org. It’s a US based B-Corp though if that influences anything
Sad that Thalia isn’t part of this.
Well, Thalia is one of the enemies of independently owned bookshops so no surprise there I guess
Learnt something today, thanks.
