Ashley Montague, co-owner of Penn Book Center at 34th and Sansom streets, said the trouble began a couple of years ago with textbooks.
"We would always check the Amazon prices to try to say, 'OK well this is what they're selling it for, we might lower our price to try to get close to their price,'" she said. "But when they're selling the book for what we're paying for it, obviously that is a price we cannot match."
As a result, Montague said they stopped selling textbooks because they could no longer afford that business model.
"We expanded our hours, we changed the layout of the store, increased the number of events that we had in the store to the point where now I think we have over 100 a year," she added, but that wasn't enough.
The owners announced the store would close after more than 50 years in the business.
"It's very rare to find a space where you can have interaction across different age groups and between faculty and students and community members," she said, "both through the kind of books they sell there, but also the amazing author events they hold at the store."