Gentleman shopkeeper James Daunt has given a cringeworthy interview to the Independent where he calls Amazon ‘a ruthless, money-making devil, the consumer’s enemy’. I wouldn’t be surprised if the manger of “Quills ‘R’ Us” had said something similar about William Caxton in 1476.
Poor James Daunt. He clearly had a certain degree of business acumen to set up his successful mini-chain of London bookshops, but since taking over Waterstone’s he has yet to prove he knows what he’s doing. His only real achievement so far is to get rid of that notorious three-for-two.
If I were a Waterstone’s bookseller reading the Independent interview online, my next click would be straight onto Guardian Jobs. A boss who insults his competitor in public can hardly inspire confidence in his staff. And to criticise Amazon for being ‘ruthless and money-making’ — isn’t that what business is supposed to be about?
As a consumer reading the Independent interview, I felt a tiny bit insulted. When he describes Amazon as the ‘consumer’s enemy’, Daunt’s implication is that me and the other millions of people who choose to shop there just don’t know what’s good for us. By placing price, choice and convenience over — over what, traipsing to an overpriced bookshop on the off chance they’ll have what we’re looking for? — we are apparently sleepwalking into a bookless future. I resent being labelled a passive victim of capitalism. If I want to buy the new Dickens biography I’m not going to travel into town to spend £30 when I can sit at home in my pyjamas and buy it for £13.50.
Daunt’s problem is that he vastly overestimates his market. In his interview he says Waterstone’s should serve “the serious reader”, meaning somebody who will regularly spend money on hardbacks for themselves. While this is a noble aim, there just aren’t enough of these “serious readers” to sustain a business — as Daunt would realise if he ventured north of Hampstead. He appears to suffer from that malady peculiar to the English (read: London) upper-middle classes, which is to assume there are a lot more people like them than there actually are.
I don’t know how long Waterstone’s has got. I imagine it will probably disintegrate at around the same time as Thomas Cook, that other great casualty of the internet age (where are all the bien pensant laments for our disappearing travel agents?). And you can be sure when it does eventually disappear, the blame will lie squarely with us, the consumers, the selfish drones who preferred to heat our homes than subsidise a failing business model.
Anna Baddeley is editor of The Omnivore.
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