E-Book Consumers Drive More Sales & The Popularity of eBook Reading Platforms

From the BISG (Book Industry Study Group):

E-book consumers are increasing their purchase of books — both print and e-book formats — online and especially through in-app purchasing, and decreasing their use of brick-and-mortar stores, according to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)’s closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey. The first installment in Volume Three of the survey reveals that more than half of e-book readers increased their use of apps to purchase books and more than one-third increased their use of general retail websites such as Amazon.com. The gains for these digital vendors come at the expense of brick and mortar bookstores, even independents. More than a third of e-book buyers decreased their spending at national chains and 29% said they are buying less from their local indie.
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Findings also show that while dedicated e-readers remain the dominant e-reading platform, especially among Power Buyers, multi-function tablet devices and smartphones are gaining in popularity. Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading results show:

• Almost 17% of respondents indicated that tablets were the devices most used to read e-books — up from 13% in the previous survey.
• Respondents who preferred smartphones jumped from 5.3% to 9.2%.
• Dedicated e-readers were preferred by 60.9% of all respondents, down from 71.6% in the previous survey.

Since November 2009, Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading has been tracking the habits and preferences of book consumers who say they have acquired an e-book or a dedicated e-reading device within the past 18 months. Volume Three is sponsored by Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, and Harlequin.

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