Hastings Entertainment has opened a "new store model" flagship store
in Amarillo, Tex., where its corporate headquarters are located. The
27,000-sq.-ft. store at 2020 S. Georgia features a new branding
concept, "Discover Your Entertainment," that aims, the company stated,
to highlight "the sense of discovery . . . customers seek in an
entertainment shopping experience." The store has a new logo, interior
design and merchandising
The store's book stock has expanded to more than 90,000 titles,
including a separate children's department. Among changes in other categories:
the store has added Fender and Gibson guitars to the musical instrument
selection and offers more personal electronics. The Hardback Coffee
Café has indoor and outdoor seating, wi-fi, a fireplace and
drive-through service.
"Refining and enhancing the Hastings brand has been a priority over the
past two years at the company," Kevin Ball, v-p of marketing, said in a
statement.
---
In a report called Water for Elephants: An Independent Booksellers Success Story,
the American Booksellers Association has documented how the early
enthusiasm of indies for Sara Gruen's first novel and how collaborative
work with publisher Algonquin helped make the title a bestseller.
"ABA took quick notice of our members' excitement about this superb book," ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz told Bookselling This Week.
"So we decided to track its progress. Our thinking was to create a case
study showing that if independent booksellers get behind a book, a
certain kind of book, they can make it happen in a big way, where it
might not have happened otherwise."
---
In a 24/7
profile of Vox Pop in Ditmas Park in Brooklyn, N.Y.--part
coffeehouse, part bookstore, with a decidedly leftist slant--CEO
Sander Hicks talks about opening new Vox Pops, beginning in other parts
of Brooklyn.
"What happens if
we had 3,000 Vox Pops stimulating discussion about what the U.S. should
be doing in Iraq, and what is the identity of this country?" he asked.