New cycle of used-bookstore extinctions on the way?

In Southern California, where I visit used bookstores, it seems to me
that
about one-half {at least) of the shops around in the early-2000's are
gone.

In most of the cases I am aware of, the dealers were not on-line and
usually
did not even have a computer in the store. Simply put, they were
charging
far too much for low market-value books, and letting many high-market
value books go out the door far too cheaply, often bought by
customers
who would turn around and sell the same books on the net for prices
that
the dealer should have been asking in the first place. These dealers
did
not notice the elephant in the room (the net book market) and you
ignore
the elephant in the room at your own peril.

We may soon be seeing a new round of used bookstore
extinctions. This time, it could involve dealers who are not
entirely net-clueless, and are either selling on the net or at
least checking prices on the large net venues.

What the dealers I have in mind are NOT doing, though, is
making any effort to obtain the high-value books that the
customers want.

Serendipity buying used to work pretty well for the these dealers.
At
one time, people regularly brought them high-value books, the sort
the dealer could pay one dollar or two for and then sell in the store
or on the net for maybe $20 and sometimes far upwards of that.
As a result, used bookstore owners were able to keep their stock
fresh and interesting without much effort or expense.

What is happening now, of course (a large percentage of the
general population being computer/net literate), is that far more
people with books to sell are checking prices in the internet, and
in many instances are selling books themselves in the large net
venues. In some cases they are even bringing the dregs
and the lees of their accumulations into their used bookstores.
Who can blame the sellers for that, since they know that the
bookstore
owner will far underpay them for high-value items, although the same
dealer may pay something close to a reasonable price for low market
value items.

The result of all this is that the inventories in the stores I have
in mind are becoming degraded and stale with regard to just
about everything except popular paperback and hardcover novels.
I won''t set foot in several of them any more because of the
lackluster, boring quaility of their stock. Soon, they may
become almost as dismal as those little "paperback trader"
shops (which in turn, will probably run out of buiness
eventually with improvements and lowered prices in Kindle
and Kindle-like devices.).

How can "brick-and-mortar" dealers buck this trend? One way
is for them to more carefully target the items they know their
customers want. Dealers will have to pay more for the
books they know they can sell. Is there anything wrong with
paying $25 for a book when you know you can sell it for $50
very soon?

Sadly, some dealers lack the mental capacity for attempting
anything close to that sort of targeted stock-buying. Other
dealers are intelligent enough to more effectively target their
purchases, but are too lazy to attempt that. They prefer to
lounge behind their counters waiting for the serendipity stock
acquisitions of a few years ago to return, although common
sense should tell them such days are gone.

In other words, being now on the net, the bricks-and-mortar
dealers I refer to are at least vaguely aware there is an
"elephant in the room" but don't have what it takes to use
that awareness to their advantage.

They will either learn to target their buying more carefully and
will be willing to pay prices which reflect the market value for
things they know they can sell at a profit, or they will very
likely be out of business soon.

[Memo from the upstairs office]