Merchandizing skills faced with the platformization of a cultural market

Although little is known about the second-hand book market, which is therefore difficult to quantify, it plays a fundamental role in the circulation of printed cultural goods. Since the late 1990s, its retailers and operating rules have been destabilized by the platformization of this market space, materialized in the rise of new entrants and the use of computer technologies for profit-making. Based on a long-term qualitative survey of supply-side actors, this article examines the evolution of retailers’ merchandizing skills by looking in depth at one of the essential stages in the creation of profit-making opportunities: the construction of a selection of products. The two processes that run through this operation—its decommodification and digitization—call into question the prevailing conditions of circulation of these second-hand cultural goods.