A report in today's "Australian" newspaper states that the Collins chain of Australian booksellers is experiencing financial difficulties, and has decided to cancel their annual Mothers' Day catalogue - the second busiest after Christmas.
"Collins managing director David Dean sent an email to suppliers last week cancelling all back orders, including all April and May new releases." This does not look good. Reasons cited for the downturn include "Aggressive overseas companies such as Borders and Amazon have made the specialist retail trade tougher, and discount stores such as Kmart and Big W use heavily discounted books as 'loss leaders' to entice people into their variety stores." Three stores have recently closed in Melbourne suburbs and you would have to think that more are to follow.
