After Decades Of Decline, Bookstores Are Writing A Comeback Story

Once destined to be a dying retail genre, bookstores have turned the page as store openings have skyrocketed over the past five years.

This year alone, there were 422 independent bookstore openings across the U.S. That represents a 24% increase from 2024, according to the American Booksellers Association.

Barnes & Noble has also reportedly opened more new stores in 2025 than it opened collectively from 2009 to 2019.

The internet was once perceived as the greatest threat to bookstores, but now online booklovers are contributing to bookstores’ resurgence as they seek offline places to share their love of books, ABA CEO Allison Hill said.

This has coincided with high post-pandemic retail vacancy and a grassroots buy-local push to strengthen booksellers’ bottom line, she said.

"This has kind of become a flywheel effect where we've just seen this robustness in the industry in terms of sales, community support, growth in the channel and new stores," Hill said.

The reason for the decline of the bookstore is well known: online shopping. With Amazon’s rise in the mid-1990s, ABA membership steadily declined, falling from 7,000 in 1994 to 1,951 in 2019, as customers sought the convenience of buying books with a mouse click.

Then the pandemic struck, and industry watchers assumed booksellers would suffer along with other retail sectors as shoppers shunned brick-and-mortar stores for online shopping.

Instead, booklovers came out of the pandemic seeking a place to bond over their shared love of books, Hill said. Online, users drawn to BookTok and Bookstagram trends have brought together younger generations of avid readers to browse together at local shops.

Reading is "seen by a lot of people as a much more communal activity," Hill said.

"And I think that plays out online, but I think it definitely plays out in real life."

Bookstores also provide people with an escape from working in the confines of their own homes. To capitalize on this, newer bookstores have evolved to include wine bars, cafés and even Airbnb rentals, she said.

"People who are working from home are really hungry for community," Hill said. "A bookstore provides you this opportunity to connect with people and maybe be around something that you love."

Bookstores also have benefited from the surplus of vacant retail space created by the pandemic. Small businesses are reaping the benefits of high vacancies, especially in struggling shopping centers. Some landlords are offering flexible lease lengths, partial fit-outs and, in some cases, free rent, CNBC reported.

New England Independent Booksellers Association Executive Director Beth Ineson said she has seen more openings in the New England region over the last four years than in the last 15 years combined. She said the retail vacancy from the pandemic was one of the main drivers in lowering the barrier to entry for many booksellers.

"New England has historically been a very difficult place to open a bookstore," Ineson said. "The pandemic, at a certain point, lowered the point of entry for stores to be able to have access to commercial real estate."

Within the last couple of years, bookstores have popped up all over Greater Boston. Molly's Bookstore opened a second location at King Street Properties' Allston LabWorks life sciences development in Boston, Porter Square Books expanded to 50 Liberty Drive in the city's Seaport District, and Harvard Book Store opened a second location at BXP's Prudential Building in the Back Bay.

There may be even more retail space available for bookstores’ expansion. Roughly 140M SF of retail space could free up, as companies have announced 9,900 store closures over the past year, according to JLL.

Local communities are also pushing shop-local initiatives. An Intuit survey of consumers' end-of-year spending plans published in October found that 41% of total holiday spending will be at small businesses. That figure represents a 44% jump from the estimated spending level at small businesses for the previous holiday season.

Larger players are also benefiting from the uptick in demand for brick-and-mortar book shopping.

Like independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble suffered from Amazon eating into its market share. In 1997, the chain had more than 1,000 locations, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. By 2019, the number of stores had shrunk to 627.

Unlike its corporate bookstore rival Borders, which shut down in 2011, Barnes & Noble survived Amazon’s rise. Business researchers have determined that it did so largely because it sought to integrate its online shopping presence with its store experience.

In 2019, the bookstore chain was purchased by a subsidiary of Elliott Investment Management, a hedge fund.

In the last two years, the chain has expanded. Barnes & Noble opened more than 50 new locations in 2024 and made plans to open some 60 by the end of 2025.

Elliott Management plans to initiate a public offering for Barnes & Noble and Britain's largest bookstore chain, Waterstones, The Times reported. The move comes as both booksellers have made roughly $400M in profit and $3B in sales.

Marc Palestina, principal at VanRock CRE, represents the bookstore giant in New Jersey and said the company has been strategic with its expansion, targeting new locations and relocations in active lifestyle centers or in shopping areas with other large, popular brands like T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods.

"Companywide, there is definitely a strong feeling of wanting to expand and open up bookstores in some locations throughout Jersey that are areas of need," Palestina said.

Palestina said the company has evolved with its demographics.

"They've totally changed their strategies as far as what's in the stores, and they've really tailored to their customer experience within each region and territory," Palestina said. "No two stores are the same from what's on the shelves and things like that."

As for independent bookstores, Hill said she doesn't see bookstore growth stopping anytime soon, as every bookstore can provide a unique experience for readers that is hard to replicate.

For example, a bookstore could open up and only cater to romance readers, like Lovestruck Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It could be located in a small residential home, like Casita Bookstore in Long Beach, California. Or it may also have a podcast studio, like Baldwin Bookstores in New Orleans.

"They each have their own character, their own curation," Hill said. "You could spend the afternoon at all three of those stores and find completely different books and have completely different experiences."