Like many other online retailers, Barnesandnoble.com is discounting,
but the B&N division is also trying "more refined merchandising
techniques to help glean sales from items outside the bargain bin," a
Business section story in today's New York Times said.
B&N.com has added weekly video "tours" that feature a category
specialist who discusses choices in particular genres. "People have so
much information thrown at them, especially in books, where there are
hundreds of thousands of new books published each year," said CEO Marie
Toulantis. "The challenge is in how you bubble up the best choices for
them."
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The film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire continues to outsell its Potter predecessors, generating more than $400 million in ticket sales worldwide in two weeks. The biggest markets after the U.S. are the U.K., Germany and Mexico. In North America over the weekend, the movie sold almost $55 million in tickets, for a two-week total of almost $202 million.
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The Ottawa Sun profiles a new-format Indigo Books & Music store in Ottawa, Ont. Among other highlights: "sedate" benches instead of comfy chairs and many, many in-store boutiques. The article features comments from Indigo head Heather Reisman, sort of the Martha Stewart of Canadian bookselling.
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The Deseret News notes the closing next month of the Bookmark in Springville, Utah, a 16-year-old independent Latter Day Saints bookstore. Owner Sharon Ewing, who serves on the board of the Independent LDS Booksellers Association, told the paper that out of the group's 250 members in August 2004, almost half have closed, largely because of competition from chain bookstores and big-box stores such as Wal-Mart. Another hurdle: two distributors in the field have their own bookstores.
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The fleet expands: Borders has opened two more airport bookstores. They are a 1,429-sq.-ft. store in Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Ariz., and a 1,137-sq.-ft. store in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, its second store in that airport.
Both stores have about 5,000 book titles, including audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and CD titles. The Phoenix store also sells DVDs and has customer seating.
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Related to a local custom of opening galleries in residences, Kurt Thometz, a rare book dealer, has opened Jumel Terrace Books in his Harlem home in New York City and features books on Africana, Harlem history, jazz, African-American literature and more, according to today's New York Times. Open by appointment only, the store has stock that Thometz has handpicked. "The books I haven't read I want to read," he said.
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The Los Angeles Times's Kenneth Turan celebrates the Gold Cities Book Town Association, which includes booksellers in Grass Valley and Nevada City, Calif., north of Sacramento. Here he sketches eight of the stores in this book town.
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The film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire continues to outsell its Potter predecessors, generating more than $400 million in ticket sales worldwide in two weeks. The biggest markets after the U.S. are the U.K., Germany and Mexico. In North America over the weekend, the movie sold almost $55 million in tickets, for a two-week total of almost $202 million.
---
The Ottawa Sun profiles a new-format Indigo Books & Music store in Ottawa, Ont. Among other highlights: "sedate" benches instead of comfy chairs and many, many in-store boutiques. The article features comments from Indigo head Heather Reisman, sort of the Martha Stewart of Canadian bookselling.
---
The Deseret News notes the closing next month of the Bookmark in Springville, Utah, a 16-year-old independent Latter Day Saints bookstore. Owner Sharon Ewing, who serves on the board of the Independent LDS Booksellers Association, told the paper that out of the group's 250 members in August 2004, almost half have closed, largely because of competition from chain bookstores and big-box stores such as Wal-Mart. Another hurdle: two distributors in the field have their own bookstores.
---
The fleet expands: Borders has opened two more airport bookstores. They are a 1,429-sq.-ft. store in Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Ariz., and a 1,137-sq.-ft. store in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, its second store in that airport.
Both stores have about 5,000 book titles, including audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and CD titles. The Phoenix store also sells DVDs and has customer seating.
---
Related to a local custom of opening galleries in residences, Kurt Thometz, a rare book dealer, has opened Jumel Terrace Books in his Harlem home in New York City and features books on Africana, Harlem history, jazz, African-American literature and more, according to today's New York Times. Open by appointment only, the store has stock that Thometz has handpicked. "The books I haven't read I want to read," he said.
---
The Los Angeles Times's Kenneth Turan celebrates the Gold Cities Book Town Association, which includes booksellers in Grass Valley and Nevada City, Calif., north of Sacramento. Here he sketches eight of the stores in this book town.