If I decided to buy a new book from a bookshop, I wouldn’t want it to have been previously read cover-to-cover by someone else.
I suppose, if I went to somewhere like Borders (although it’d be hard, they all went into administration here), I’d be paying a premium for the book because of the fact that it wasn’t second-hand and hadn’t been read before. Presumably, people who don’t mind or prefer to buy second-hand books (like me) wouldn’t choose to shop at a store that only sold new books, since it’s more expensive. Therefore, if someone is shopping there, I’d assume they are doing so because they want something brand new, and they do mind whether or not it’s been read before. Either that, or they have money to burn.
Therefore, I suppose it is a little inconsiderate, in the sense that it isn’t really respecting other customers who end up paying for something that you used first. Furthermore, presumably once books get stained or damaged enough by customers who don’t pay for them, the book store can’t sell them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think huge international bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble urgently need protecting, but in any business of any size, I imagine if lots of book-damaging goes on, prices are probably driven higher for those people who do choose to pay for what they read. And I guess that’s rather shoddy and unfair too.
I very rarely buy new books and prefer to buy them used from Amazon marketplace, eBay or second hand bookshops. The only time I really buy new books is when I can’t locate something that I want second-hand. Unfortunately, our local library is for absolute cretins.