White Paper: Christian Retail Channel e-Book Status
An exploration into the rise of e-books
By Curtis Riskey, CBA Executive Director
Michael Regennitter, CBA Director of Membership
Eric Grimm, CBA Manager of Strategic Partnerships
Executive Summary
A yearlong exploration into e-books and Christian retail stores began with a CBA hosted “Digital Summit” and helped drive industry dialog on a critical marketplace challenge.
Problem Statement
Consumer acceptance of e-books is increasing and shifting book sales away from brick-andmortar stores.
Continuing Challenges
Multiple retailer and publisher challenges affect development of a cooperative digital delivery solution.
Summary and Conclusion
Presently, no viable cooperative solutions have been identified. Key challenges are high start-up costs, limited foreseeable return on investment, perceived high risks in a cooperative program, and the inability of technology providers to broadly meet critical requirements. Additionally, there have been recent introductions of small-scale technology solutions within the industry. Therefore, the retailer group concluded a broad-based, cooperative industry e-book platform is not feasible at this time. However, retailers should pursue individual solutions through available technologies.
