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The reasons for persistent information undersupply include ( ranked by relevance ):
1 . Publishing houses typically focus on retailers rather than end consumers in the entire sales process . Publishers are generally reluctant to directly address end consumers , in part because they do not want to trigger a sense of direct competition with their retail partners ( channel conflict ).
2 . Despite their mutual dependence , book publishers and retailers work relatively independently with little data and information exchange .
3 . Scarce resources in terms of ( marketing ) budgets limit the activity radius of departments in charge since a majority of their budget is allocated to traditional , yet expensive print advertising to reach the core target audience of 50 + age readers .
4 . Scarce personnel resources are another bottleneck that hinders enhanced customer intelligence . Large publishing houses employ only a handful of social media managers , and theses managers are more focused on conducting active marketing campaigns than creating customer insights from data .
5 . As our discussions and project experience show , the tendency of book-publishing decision makers to rely more on their gut feeling , intuition and experience persists more in publishing than in other industries .
6 . A lack of affordable support from the professional services and advisory industry tailored to the needs and budgets of the book publishing industry limits the kind of professional support that book publishers may buy externally . This was especially relevant in the early days of consumer intelligence programs , when internal knowledge has yet to be created with the support of third-party experts .