Consumers' behaviour & preferences
Reading habit
One of the most relevant segmentation regarding the book market is probably the reading habits of consumers. In Germany, we can distinguish three main types of consumers as illustrated here below:
*Small readers: once a month or less; average readers: more than once a month; heavy readers : Once a week or more
In addition, according to “Publishing perspectives” (Süßmann, 2015), 58.3% of Germans bought a book in 2015. Also, referring to the same source, the majority of Germans read both paperback and hardcover books but 27.9% prefer the cheap paperback while 8.5% rather buy hardcover books.
Social category
In their study about reading habits in Germany (2015), the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (2015 : « Summary of the study… ») used the Sinus-Milieus model to distinguish different social categories among the German population as illustrated here below with the percentage of the population in each category:
The results of their studies shows that members of the Socio-ecological milieu (7% of the population) are very heavy book readers. Similarly, members of the liberal intellectuals’ milieu (7% of the population) have strong reading habits.
The “High Achievers, Movers & Shakers, Adaptive Pragmatists and to some extent also the Escapists” (38% of the population in total) are also keen to reading books.
Books are only read for relaxation for the New Middle Class and the Traditionals (28% in total) while the Precarious (9%) are small readers.
Gender
According to a poll conducted by “Publishing perspectives” (Süßmann, 2015), women read far more than men. Indeed, 54% of women read at least once a week and women between 30 and 44 years old are the group buying the most books. In general, 60% of book buyers are female and they buy 1.7 books a year more than man on average (German Publishers and Booksellers Association, 2015 : « Summary of the study: Buyers and readers of books 2015. Profiles, motives, attitudes »).
Age
According to a study conducted by the “Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels” in 2015, the “proportion of book buyers increases with age”. Indeed, the 60 year-olds purchase twice as many books as the under-20-year-old.
The distribution channels in Germany can be split in four big categories (see figure 1). Even though small retailers still account for a large share of the market, five large retail chains concentrated 22% of the sales in 2010 (Simon & de Pratto, 2012). Interestingly, online sales (together with mail order) did not exceed 17% of the market share in 2008. The internet book trade alone accounted for 16.2% of the distribution channel alone in 2014, decreasing by 3.1% compared to 2013 total sales decreased by 2.2% the same year (German Publishers & Booksellers Association, 2014 : « Books and the book trade in figures »).
Distribution channels
