Should on-line bookshops be a threat to NZ 'bricks and mortar' type?

This from the Transpress NZ blog:

A comment encountered frequently from conventional bookshops in NZ now is that overseas cyber bookshops, Amazon in particular, compete for business with them in respect of overseas published books. This notwithstanding the fact that most of these same shops have their own direct-sell websites.

This raises the question - what percentage of the range of books in NZ bookshops is NZ published and what percentage is imported? There is no accurate means of assessing this other than by inspecting a few shops and making an estimate. We have done this in a few towns and cities now, and our estimate is that only about 4-5% of the typical range on offer is from NZ publishers. With the likes of Whitcoulls and Paper Plus that is being generous.

Read the rest on the Transpress NZ blog.