Spotify Is Now Selling Physical Books? | Fast Five Shorts
This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, Quorso, and Veloq, explores Spotify’s partnership with Bookshop.org to sell physical books.
Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga, alongside Shoptalk’s Joe Laszlo, unpack why this move feels like a natural extension of Spotify’s ecosystem and what it means for omnichannel reading behavior.
⏩ Tune in for the full episode here.
#Spotify #BookshopOrg #RetailStrategy #Omnichannel #RetailPodcast #OmniTalk
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Transcript
According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify will allow premium subscribers to buy hardcovers and paperbacks through its app, with bookshop.org setting retail prices, holding inventory and fulfilling sales.
Speaker A:While Spotify receives an undisclosed affiliate fee, the offering will compete directly with Amazon.com, the country's largest online bookseller, whose business units include Audible, the dominant audiobook service.
Speaker A:Spotify is also introducing Page Match, one of my favorite features, enabling users to sync their audiobooks with physical books by scanning a page from the printed book with their phone, then finding that exact spot in the audiobook edition.
Speaker A:All right, I want to know, are you buying or selling buyers buying hardcover books via Spotify?
Speaker B:I'm buying.
Speaker B:I think it doesn't do Spotify any harm.
Speaker B:It's like a few incremental book sales.
Speaker B:Like everybody with an audience these days is either trying to kind of sell the audience's attention or sell stuff to that audience.
Speaker B:Why not books?
Speaker B:The first thing I thought was actually, well why, why isn't Spotify selling CDs?
Speaker B:But it turns out if you go to an artist page on Spotify, individual artists can set up merch stores including selling CDs.
Speaker B:So in a marketplace kind of way, they do already do that.
Speaker B:If they've got any kind of audience sentiment data from their, their audiobook audience.
Speaker B:It says even a small percentage of those folks like to get a hardcover book.
Speaker B:If they really liked the audiobook, why not?
Speaker B:I think it's only upside for them and it's kind of clever and it's caught our attention.
Speaker B:So it's doing what it's.
Speaker A:Yeah, we have people that know about bookshop.org who never knew about that company before.
Speaker A:So it's certainly good for them too.
Speaker A:But yeah, Joe, I think you bring up a really good point.
Speaker A:I mean, I think about, I think it's Spotify recognizing that their listeners are multi stream listeners, they're multi channel audiences.
Speaker A:And I, I do this all the time, like where I'll get a book, an audiobook and the hard copy.
Speaker A:Because it depends on different points in my day, like if I'm driving to a meeting or to pick up kids, I want to listen to the audiobook and then to have to figure out on my, either on my phone or, or in my hardcover book.
Speaker A:Like I want to have that different experience where I'm actually reading it and I think this is a great way.
Speaker A:Low risk, no all upside for both bookshop.org and Spotify to grow an audience that they didn't have before and provide them more opportunities to listen and more flexibility, especially with that Page Match app.
Speaker A:But Chris, we'll.
Speaker B:I love Page Match.
Speaker B:I mean, it feels like that that was probably the only real investment was like some developer had to spend a half hour a day, like, figuring out how to make that work.
Speaker B:But I love that idea for like you that are kind of omni platform book.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Readers.
Speaker B:It feels like it's going to be such a boon to their lives.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker A:Okay, Chris, I know how you feel about audiobooks, so I'm curious to get your thoughts on whether or not you think this is a good strategic move here for Spotify.
Speaker A:Are you buying or selling?
Speaker C:Yeah, no.
Speaker C:I tried really hard to come up with a contrarian angle for this and I just can't.
Speaker C:I think, I think you guys said it.
Speaker C:It's a good move for Spotify.
Speaker C:You know, my question for you, Joe, though, is, I mean, and is ann is clearly 10,000 people, as we say on this show.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So they're meeting a need for Ann and people like her.
Speaker C:But Joe, do you exhibit that characteristic of buying an audiobook and a physical book and reading.
Speaker C:Reading both simultaneously throughout the course of finishing said book?
Speaker B:I am not an audiobook guy, although I am guilty of buying like an ebook to like read on my phone or my, my iPad and the actual physical paper book as well.
Speaker B:Again, it's almost like the, the paper book is oftentimes like a souvenir.
Speaker B:If I really like the, the ebook, I could see that, buy it like, and put it on my shelf and display it there.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:Yeah, but there, there have definitely been times when I've gone back and forth between an ebook and, and, and the same physical book and, and then it's like really bookmarks and whatnot.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So even if it's not an audiobook, I do kind of do what I. I do that behavior in a way.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:You don't want to carry the giant book in your bag like this.
Speaker A:The ebook is.
Speaker A:Make sense.
Speaker A:Then the audiobook makes sense.
Speaker A:Then maybe you want to read it before bed because you're no screens.
Speaker A:I mean, I think there's, there's so much opportunity.
Speaker B:It's happening with video already, right?
Speaker B:Like, like clever.
Speaker B:Like video services will let you watch part of a show on your tablet and then when you're back in front of your tv, you're you're Amazon Fire or your, your Apple TV or whatever kind of picks up exactly where you left the show off on the other device.
Speaker B:So why.
Speaker B:Why can't we do that with books?
Speaker B:We should.
Speaker A:I love, I love our campaign to to save to save the multi channel readers lives.
Speaker A:Joe.
