I love to read books. Actual books. I'm one of the few people in my generation (mid-30s) who has not moved to an e-Reader. Which is why I have felt incredibly excluded as a customer in my last few trips to Barnes and Noble. At my local store (the Prudential Center in Boston) no less than half the floor when you walk in is branded with nook items and accessories. (Know what used to be there? Among other things, the travel section. I miss daydreaming about where my next trip is going to be. Now travel is mushed into the back of the store.) More people staff the nook part of the store than the info desk. They don't answer "book" questions. And when I renewed my membership for another year once I had purchased something, I was pitched on the benefits available to me if I got a nook. (Apologies to that cashier because I definitely bit his head off.)
I was in Toronto recently and stepped into an Indigo bookstore. Know what was there? Books. Staff picks, tables and table and rows and rows of books. It was a BOOKstore. And I read a lot of books each year - around 40 or so.
I wish I had been someone who loved independent bookstores, but to be honest I have always liked B&N just as much as any independent book shop. In fact, shopping there felt like shopping in a carefully-designed and carefully-maintained private store. I always thought the first few tables of recommendations (paperback favorites, new in paperback, etc) were right on with respect to what I should read next. When the Kindle first came out (before there was a nook), I said one of the reasons I didn't think I'd like it was that I love the feeling of browsing in a book store and reading jacket after jacket in a careful determination of what to buy.
I'm no Luddite. I work at a high-tech company in a technical role. I got a Tivo before it was cool and set up my own RF remote. But I do like books, actual books, with deckled edges and smells and beautiful covers (never the movie edition), and I want to shop for them. If it's not fun to shop for them in a B&N store anymore then I'm just as likely to buy on Amazon since I'm buying other household items and groceries there anyway.
I know I'm in the minority. But I'm also a Barnes and Noble fan historically, so I wanted to be fair and let you know how it feels to shop in your stores these days.
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1 comment:
Beautifully written response to a situation that many of us have faced at B&N and other formerly favorite stores, Sheryl. I hope that B&N are smart enough to take it to heart. Doing less of what you're good at doing in order to do what every other store is doing just doesn't make sense, does it?
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