Today we’re sharing the final instalment in our mini-series of new data from the Canadian Book Consumer survey, in anticipation of the release of the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2022 next month.
So far, we’ve looked at both Canadian book buyers and Canadian book borrowers — and the myriad of ways they discovered, chose, bought, and borrowed books in 2022. But what’s so special about the way Canadian book consumers behaved in 2022? The wane of the COVID-19 pandemic also marked the rise of something else – in-person browsing for books. And this return to book browsing makes a difference in book buying and borrowing.
A bit about the data before we get started. The Canadian Book Consumer survey is an annual survey of Canadians and Canadian book consumers. In it, we survey Canadians quarterly about their book buying, borrowing, and other book-related behaviours during the months of March, June, September, and December. In 2022, we surveyed a total of 10,480 Canadians – 18% were book buyers and 20% were book borrowers.
So, what’s the big deal about browsing for books?
Browsing bookstores
In 2022, Canadian book buyers are back to visiting their local bookstores in-store. In 2022, 37% of Canadian book buyers felt that COVID-19 was impacting their book buying, down from 47% in 2021 and 45% in 2020.
Out of all the book buyers we surveyed for the Canadian Book Consumer survey last year, 64% visited a bookstore in person, up from 55% in 2021 and 54% in 2020. The graph below shows the frequency of in-person bookstore visits by Canadian book buyers from 2020 to 2022. Looking year over year, most book buyers visited a bookstore in-person at least one to four times — a percentage that increased 38% from 2020 to 2022. More frequent visits were not as popular. In 2020, only 6% of respondents visited a bookstore in person five to nine times, and in 2021 and 2022 only 5% did. Furthermore, only 4%, 3%, and 1% of respondents visited a bookstore 10 to 14 times in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively, and the downward trend continues for visits equal or higher than 15 times.
In contrast, the percentage of online bookstore visits by Canadian book buyers has remained relatively consistent over the last three years — 73% in 2020, 76% in 2021, and 73% in 2022 visited a bookstore online at least once.
Why did Canadian book buyers choose to visit a bookstore in-person in 2022? The top four reasons book buyers visited in-store in 2022 were related to browsing:
Browse books to pass time — 29%
Browse for book deals and sales — 26%
Browse displays and shelves for books to buy — 26%
Browse new releases — 23%
While these top reasons are shared from 2021 to 2022, there is a significant increase in the percentage of Canadian book buyers who actively browsed their local bookstore last year. In 2022, more Canadian book buyers visited a bookstore in person to:
Browse books to pass time — up 30% from 2021 to 2022
Browse for book deals and sales — up 28% from 2021 to 2022
Browse displays and shelves for books to buy — up 20% from 2021 to 2022
Browse new releases — up 10% from 2021 to 2022
And this browsing translated into book sales. Out of all the book purchases we tracked through the Canadian Book Consumer survey in 2022, 20% of Canadian book buyers became aware of the book they bought by searching or browsing either online or in-person. Of those book buyers, 33% discovered the book they bought by browsing in-store — up 38% from 2020.
Compared to past years, slightly more Canadian book buyers bought books spontaneously in 2022, shown in the graph below. Here, 18% of all book purchases in 2022 were impulse purchases, up 13% from 2021. The number of purchases where the book buyer was planning to buy a book at that specific time, but not a particular book also increased to 18%, up 6% from the year before. The number of purchases where buyers had planned to buy a particular book, but not necessarily at a specific time remained the same for both years (25%). And the number of book buyers who had planned to buy a particular book at a specific time decreased to 36%, down 8%.
Browsing libraries
Canadian book borrowers also returned to visiting their local library in person in 2022. Last year, 46% of Canadian book borrowers felt that COVID-19 was impacting their book borrowing, down from 58% in 2021.
For Canadian book borrowers in 2022, 70% visited a library branch in person at least once — down from 73% in 2021 but up from 59% in 2020. Almost half of book borrowers visited a library branch between one and four times in 2022 (46%), shown in the graph below. Another 13% of Canadian book borrowers also visited the library in person five to nine times last year, a percentage that is relatively consistent over the last three years. More frequent visits — from 10 to 14 times or 15 and higher — are consistently low among respondents, with the highest responses in 2021 for the 10 to 14 times option (7%) and the lowest in 2020 for the 15 times or more option (4%).
Interestingly, the number of online library visits by Canadian book borrowers has also increased from 50% in 2020 and 69% in 2021 to 77% in 2022.
In 2022, Canadian book borrowers visited the library for a number of reasons, with two out of the top three being related to book browsing:
To pick up hold(s) — 44%
To browse displays and shelves for books to borrow — 36%
To discover a new book, author, and/or illustrator — 24%
Just as we saw for Canadian book buyers, Canadian book borrowers also browsed books at the public library at increasing rates last year. In 2022, more Canadian book borrowers visited the library to:
Browse displays and shelves for books to borrow — up 33% from 2021 to 2022
Discover a new book, author, and/or illustrator — up 118% from 2021 to 2022
This browsing also impacted the books that Canadian book borrowers ended up taking out on loan in 2022. Last year, browsing accounted for two of the top three ways book borrowers became aware of the books they borrowed:
Browsing genre/subject area — 42%
Having searched specifically for this book — 32%
Browsing books by author/illustrator — 30%
Interested in Canadian book consumers? Check out the rest of this blog series here. And don’t miss next’s months release of the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2022 — keep your eyes peeled on our blog and sign up for the research newsletter so you’re always in the know.
What did BookNet read in 2024? We’re sharing some tidbits of data about our team’s reading habits this year.