The all-important post-Thanksgiving holiday sales period got off to a subdued start at bookstores around the country this year. As expected, foot traffic was light. The National Retail Federation reported the number of in-store shoppers fell 37% on Black Friday compared with last year while the number of customers who shopped only online through the weekend and on Cyber Monday rose by 44% over 2019. Bookshop.org sold some approximately $2.3 million in books over the period from Friday through Monday, according to Andy Hunter, CEO of Bookshop.org.
Unsurprisingly, Amazon.com reported it had its best period ever in the company’s history and noted on a blog post that among its bestselling items were several books, including Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (Crown) and The Deep End (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #15) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet); both titles were also cited by nearly all the bookstores surveyed by PW. Other bestsellers at Amazon included Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Crown), A Time for Mercy by John Grisham (Doubleday), The Sentinel by Lee Child (Delacorte), and Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (Tor), among adult books, as well as Grime and Punishment (Dog Man #9) by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic/Grafix) in the children’s category.
more at source: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/85048-booksellers-see-subdued-in-store-holiday-sales-online-eruption.html