Indigo: Save Computer Book Sales. Don’t Rearrange Deck Chairs.
When a baseball team is in trouble, the manager gets fired. When a magazine is in trouble, the nameplate gets changed. When a retail store is in trouble, the fixtures get moved. The tendency drifts towards the cosmetic and superficial.
Like The Apple Store…But Not
Blockbuster, HMV, and Borders are all trying new “concepts” at the store level. The HMV concept store is underwhelming. The Borders store is missing that je ne sais quoi. It is like they are trying to Apple-ify their footprints — as if removing fixtures will make consumers magically appear in their place.
For the record, the-Apple-store-as-the-new-information-commons is fine by me. And I don’t blame these retailers for trying, but it seems misguided. Change the way your store works, not merely how it looks.
Book Retailers — Amazon is Making You Look Old
In the past, an improved store experience was an excellent proxy for improving the customer experience. But not so much anymore. Being a good retailer these days has more to do with relevance than it does with ambiance. Being relevant to customers means removing barriers, not adding new ones. Amazon has removed a ton of barriers in book retail. That has made Borders and B&N seem puffy. The bloat is going to become even more obvious as books are digitized.
Get a Clue. How Many Times Does it Need to Be Said?
So how do you make big book stores more relevant? The web provides the greatest tool in history to connect with customers. Why not use that?
I am not just talking social media. To become more personal you need to become more porous and more transparent — all that stuff from the Cluetrain Manifesto.
Experiment with Tech Books: Nothing to Lose
Let me use the present state of the computer book section at Indigo Books as an example.
Computer book sales have been in decline since the millennium.
In response Indigo first sold off swaths of shelving space as merchandising space. Publishers were able to buy rights to whole sections month-by-month.
That didn’t work.
They introduced new products — software and games mostly — while also rejigging the taxonomy in-store.
That didn’t work.
Now talk is the they will shutdown the department entirely then launch a lighter digital lifestyle concept, similar to — you guessed it — the Apple store. A physical space as digital signifié seems to miss the point. They should stop competing with the internet and instead use retail judo to make the internet’s strengths work for the stores.
To Reinvent Tech Books at Retail, Open the Kimono at Retail
- Crowd source category management — there is a whole lot more to know about technology and tech books than one person can possibly know. The incumbent buyer should tap the wisdom in the community.
- Open up inventory management — what books, in what stores, in what quantity is just a guess. By adding community feedback you could improve your replenishment algorithm and better your allocations.
- Shopping needn’t be boring — use audio and video to educate, entertain, and build a customer base. The tech book buyer should do why-to-buy videos.
- Leverage your people — Go beyond making lists on Community. The tech book buyer should actively network (fb, twitter, blog, etc.) with tech book authors and readers. Make your employees brand ambassadors.
In short, connect with people. Skip the reno.
photo credit: Tony Ding, AP
photo credit: Jordan and Lee
2 Comments