What is the future of the bookstore?
Also known as, "A Love Letter to Bookstores Everywhere"
If you know only one thing about me, know this: I love to read.
For me, reading is a way of exploring ideas, pursuing curiosity, seeing connections, deepening empathy, challenging stereotypes and understanding the world even a tiny bit more. Stories have been my most faithful teacher, and it's hard for me to imagine a life without their possibilities.
I chose Barnes & Noble for this prompt because the decline of book stores deeply saddens me. The values they represent are firmly rooted in my own worldview: serendipity and discovery, ideas and discourse, community, third spaces. I grew up reading in the kid's section of the Barnes & Nobles in my town (now out-of-business) and would give almost anything to see this trend reversed. I know it's a tough nut to crack, but I wanted to to give it a shot in this exercise, and in doing so better appreciate the situation overall.
Extensive Real Estate - B&N has 650 locations with an average size of 26,000 square feet, showing impressive geographic distribution and both urban and rural penetration.
“Ready-to-Go” Retail Infrastructure with Food Service Capabilities - More than simply well-established presence, B&N’s existing stores come with amenities that can support other directions should B&N choose to explore them: Wi-Fi, cafe (and food preparation equipment & permits), restrooms, seating areas, storerooms and so on.
Member Base & Engagement Infrastructure - B&N’s membership program allows it to capture email addresses and maintain open communication channels. They have core infrastructure in place with marketing, content, communications, advertising and other arms already established. Niche audiences also open possible product and service lines, as in the case of college students and B&N's role as a marketplace for buying and renting textbooks.
Platform for Content Creation & Distribution - By way of NOOK Press and the NOOK e-reader
E-Commerce Platform - Also known as, their website - with all its online shopping capabilities.
Books! - A bit obvious, but had to get it out there.
Brand Equity - B&N remains one of the few national bookstore chains in the U.S., with perhaps surprisingly robust brand equity, heritage and resonance.
Merchandising & Partnerships Expertise - B&N has extensive merchandising and curation knowledge around content and products that sell, with an inventory and purchasing operation that support a mix of both evergreen and ‘seasonal’ content. In addition, B&N has internal expertise in cultivating and managing partnerships with publishers/ wholesalers, which can apply to other kinds of partners as well.
Short Term Staffing Infrastructure - The company has significant experience in recruiting, hiring, training, promoting, managing, and replacing short-term (1-3 years) staff, and currently (hopefully) employs intellectually-curious staff. The processes and policies in place from a HR, payroll, management and legal perspective are impressive.
Fulfillment and Logistics Infrastructure - Built from having to catalog and maintain inventory, place bulk orders and coordinate wholesale shipments from warehouses to 650+ stores nationwide.
Hardware Capabilities - While this may also be a liability given the spectacular quagmire that is the NOOK, the company has now acquired limited hardware capabilities and associated in-house knowledge.
B&N must abide by the listed product price - Because of how the publishing industry works, prices are dictated by an outside (non B&N) party and printed onto book covers. This prevents B&N from legally introducing a higher mark-up.
B&N cannot specialize in niche offerings -B&N has imposed the constraint of appealing to a mass audience, rather than narrowing and specializing in, say, rare book collectors. In a move to maximize sales, they have imposed the need to stock a diverse portfolio of both evergreen classics (e.g. Shakespeare) and new releases (e.g. Girl Boss).
B&N will not generate content directly - B&N appears to have set a boundary on how much they are willing to invest in generating their own content. This is a self-imposed constraint/ decision that may shift, similar to how Netflix and Amazon have moved to commission and produce their own content.
B&N should not target urban areas - This decision has led to massive stores in sprawling strip malls, with a different target audience from your urban hipster, for example.
"We are a brick and mortar company, first and foremost." - An attachment to the retail experience with a transactional, product-based approach.
"We are consumer-facing, not wholesaler-facing."
"We are a middle man." - We don't make content.
"We are mass market." - A mandate to appeal to everyone.
"We are in the entertainment media business." - With books, music, hobby items, gift items, and so on.
"The only way to compete with e-readers and online content is to develop our own."
"Bigger is better" when it comes to our stores.
Reimagine what else could be done with the real estate. Similar to how Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods gives them access to real estate in wealthier zip codes, how might B&N's current real estate holdings contribute to their future direction? Whether they sell/ rent the property to other businesses, or simply consolidate locations in a move to go more online, this asset does not need to anchor their future direction.
Reimagine what else could be done with stores and prioritize. As B&N ekes out a presence in the "third space," how can they lean into the tension of their identity as a brick-and-mortar store and the reality of online purchasing behaviors? McDonalds targets senior citizens by being in the business of "third spaces," where you go to chat with friends and linger over a cup of coffee - rather than the explicit business of selling fast-food. What might this look like for B&N in the context of their stores? Instead of a holding pen for products, how might the food service capabilities be leveraged to create more valuable experiences?
Cut losses in hardware. Invest in curation, experiences and stories. - You are not a technology disruptor - and that's okay. Don't compete with Amazon on their turf. You're more than a gatekeeper to content, so how might you fully embrace that freedom? What would it look like to lean into everything that digital access in itself cannot provide -- those limited in-person experiences, the genesis of new stories by new authors, the wandering serendipity of browsing and discovery?
If it's going to stay, invest in the NOOK's two-sided marketplace possibilities - After evaluating sunk costs against future goals, if the NOOK stays then the platform needs to be heavily invested in and seen as more than simply hardware. How might B&N use it as an opportunity to connect buyers (of content) with sellers (self-publishers)? As more and more businesses move into the platform space, how can it protect itself from competition by building brand loyalty and active engagement by acting as a marketplace?
Segment your large base of users to better meet niche needs - I'm confident B&N already segments newsletters and other content to focus on readers' interests, but would like to see this approach applied to how they think about their business overall. Is B&N the Netflix for books, zooming in on readers' specific interests and facilitating discovery in an online context? If it must retain mass appeal, as many start-ups insist upon, then at least allow for segmentation in better satisfying diverse user needs and explore what discrete spin-offs (as with the B&N Education arm) might be productive.
II. Boundaries & Narratives
Because boundaries are either dictated by law (and so I can't recommend trespassing against) or derived from narratives (which can be changed), I am merging boundaries and narratives here in making recommendations.
Consider that you may not need a mass approach to hold mass appeal. Explore what the concept of tribes might inspire in your approach, particularly as it overlaps nicely with current categorization of books/ interests (history, psychology, science, and so on). Instead of one location with all the books/ information/ knowledge, what might it look like to meet diverse 'tribes' needs in a just-in-time approach? What other services or value might you provide to these tribes that Amazon - focused primarily on the transaction and point-of-sale - cannot?
Consider that the "middle man" role will perhaps always be better performed by Amazon. And so the value that you add has to become more than simply connecting consumers with products. You've thought about this with regard to cafes and seeing your role as a host, the creator of an experience. What about the role of enabler, sourcing or commissioning content from your user base and turning the publishing industry on its head? Amazon cannot compete on access to people or in-person experiences (yet). How might you capitalize on those more defensible roles before the competition has a chance to get there first?
Reimagine the business you are in. You've made progress by moving from "books" to "entertainment media," with the introduction of music, products, hobby-items. But now I want you to think even more expansively.
To be blunt, you're still seeing yourself as a gatekeeper. You are not the gatekeeper to products, media or content, not even digital content. With the NOOK, you're approaching a new channel with an old understanding of your role.
But that demand for "reading" still exists - and providing access to 'reading' is more than providing access to 'things to read.' Given your assets in the physical world, what inspiration might you draw from the rise of Breather and meditation spaces (for personal escape/ rejuvenation), the reimagining of libraries as civic and community hubs, the move of banks like Capital One into transforming from buildings into educational centers in financial literacy?
Dive into that constraint of what business you are in, and explore the beautiful possibilities. I'm cheering for you.
snowghoul
annaxmalina
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
