A New Chapter

It's Saturday afternoon in London and I'm in Waterstones Piccadilly. Although it seems busy, very few people have bags and there seems a reluctance to buy and even interact. Some people seem to be buying something specific, others look like they are being dragged round. The general atmosphere seems tense and nervy.

Why is this? Why have bookstores lost their personality, their interest and their intrigue?

Well Amazon certainly hasn't helped. Online book sales are high and the technology-friendly consumer is loving cheaper books with the 'ease-at-home' style of shopping. With instant emails at sale time and recommendations on that next book internet brands are the VHS to the cinema right now.

So what's next for the high street stores? Borders have sold their UK arm. Waterstones, owned by the HMV group still have the biggest share in the market place but are struggling to maintain this in todays tough economy and the independents are falling victims to the Tesco of the world.

Is now the time for a fundamental change?

Books are a wonderful extensions of our imagination. They allow us to escape to another world, to create our own 'in-head-cinemas' and have endless opportunities. So why not embrace this and design a store based on this excitement and intrigue and make the book store of tomorrow a destination that attracts all and stimulates our senses?

We have asked ourselves these questions and tackled the challenge head on and found that there are so many new ways that the bookstore of the future could reinvent itself.

Our customer research has shown that people still love the tactile nature of a physical book but they come up against many obstacles that stop them from buying in store. We need to breakdown these barriers and as we enter the Wisdom Generation, people combined with technology will be the answer.

By embracing this combination of people and new technologies stores will have a clear point of difference over the online retailers and they will help us all to access the plethora of titles on those shelves. Combining personalities with new technologies such as QR codes (an easy way to contain information in such a small bar-code-like square) would be a great way to tell customers more about a book.

Social media allows us to instantly access millions of people and many of those people are happy to give recommendations and advice to help customers buy that next, right book.

And rather than going against products like the Kindle, take it head-on and provide opportunities to embrace the change and plug-in in store.

And there are so many more!

Many of these new opportunities have been worked in to a conceptual project at The Yard Creative titled A New Chapter. By exploring customers needs and demands we have identified a totally new way to engage with books in the real world.



All we need now is a client who wants to fight back and take the next step to help us all find that next great book!

By Steve