Of the 4,270 Canadians polled in the Canadian Book Consumer survey for 2023, more Canadians were buying books over the $50 mark than the previous year.
In my last post, I talked about ‘fixed book pricing’ and how it hasn’t really been on the agenda in Canada since 2013. Well more signs here as well as in other parts of the world show that it is an aspect of the publishing industry that is missing. The fact that in 2023, Canadians were not looking for discount books when they were in the mood to buy, shows great hope for the industry.
Here are the numbers:
- more books ranging in the price of $50-$99 were purchased in 2023 (21%) as opposed to 2022 (18%)
- more books ranging in the price of $100-$149 were purchased in 2023 (8%) as opposed to 2022 (7%)
- more books ranging in the price of $150-$199 were purchased in 2023 (3%) as opposed to 2022 (2%)
- more books ranging in the price of $200-$249 were purchased in 2023 (2%) as opposed to 2022 (1%)
- and more books were purchased for over $250 in 2023 (3%) as opposed to 2022 (2%)
One of the tables in the survey is to me even more interesting. It is the fact that second-hand book purchases fell into similar increases in the same categories:
- more books ranging in the price of $50-$99 were purchased in 2023 (12%) as opposed to 2022 (6%)
- more books ranging in the price of $100-$149 were purchased in 2023 (4%) as opposed to 2022 (3%)
- more books ranging in the price of $150-$199 were purchased in 2023 (2%) as opposed to 2022 1%)
- books ranging in the price of $200-$249 amounted to the same in 2023 (1%) as 2022 (1%)
- and more books were purchased for over $250 in 2023 (2%) as opposed to 2022 (1%)
Stay tuned for more articles on the publishing industry and more on this topic of the spending habits of Canadians when it comes to books.