By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Kim Soo-jung, a 24-year-old office worker, buys two or three books every month but rarely goes to bookstores. Instead, she sits in front of her computer to log on to the Web site of her regular online bookstore.
``I go to downtown bookstores too but usually to check some books I have in mind before buying them online,'' Kim says. ``They are cheaper and more convenient because the books I bought are quickly delivered to my house or work.''
The overall book-selling market is stagnant but online bookstores are growing at a notable speed due to cheaper prices and convenience catering to the taste of Web-site customers.
Online book sales have risen by over 100 billion won ($98.3 million) each year since 2005. Their share of the market has also been rising ― 18 percent in 2005, 24 percent in 2006 and 28 percent last year.
The current online market is formed of a solid oligopoly. Five major online bookstores ― YES24, InterPark Books, Kyobo Online Store, Aladdin and Libro ― accounted for 83 percent of the online market in 2005, but the figure jumped to 94.5 percent last year and 95 percent in the first quarter of this year. Their profits rose by 28.1 percent over the same period.
Emerging as a blue ocean of the market, however, the business is attracting other major players to challenge the giants. Two major online shopping malls, Auction and GS E-Shop, have muscled into this new business of late following another online giant G-Market and the nation's biggest telecommunication player, SK Telecom, which bought out a smaller online bookstore Morning 365.
The newcomers have their expectations despite escalating competition.
Aside from expanding market size, operating an online bookstore is regarded as beneficial to the companies because it helps in promoting other kinds of online sales, both alone or in combined campaigns.
The heated competition between online bookstores, however, is leading to explicit conflicts between companies, especially big ones.
YES24 and InterPark have been contesting over which one is making the biggest gains. The latter declared its profit surpassed that of YES24. But YES24 retorted InterPark arbitrarily included online mileage of its online shopping mall used in the purchase of books, which should be ruled out in the calculation.
More trouble dealt a blow to YES24 recently, when a publishing organization took issue with its promotion with a credit card company in which subscribers could get a 40 percent discount when buying books. Current regulations prohibit cutting prices over 10 percent on books published less than 1.5 years ago.
The prosperity of online bookstores also means the withering of offline stores, bitter news for classic bookworms.
Their number has been more than halved over the last 10 years ― a total of 4,987 offline stores in 1998 shrank to 2,042 last year.