For some reason I missed this story when it was originally published in The Wall Street Journal:

“Borders Tries About-Face on Shelves” – by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

I am always on the look-out for stories on In-store merchandising, book publishing and bookstores. But I missed this one.

However, I stumbled across it via a series of hyper-links:

1. A post on Seth Godin’s Blog – “Do you have” vs. “Do you want” which referenced…
2. A post on the Brand Autopsy Blog – “Borders Reducing Its Borders” which was commentary on the original WSJ story about Borders Bookstores’ decision to:
   1. Place more of their books “face-out” on their shelves vs. the traditional “spine-out” style (common in libraries)
   2. This means cutting back on the number of individual titles stocked in each store by @ 10% (9,350 titles)
   3. Because when this new merchandising strategy was tested in a prototype Borders Bookstores, sales of the individual titles placed “face-out” increased by 9%

For anyone who has a life outside of book publishing, book selling and libraries this may seem like a “no-brain-er.”

“Some think the move is overdue. Unlike modern supermarkets, booksellers haven’t done enough to make books look attractive on the shelves, says John Deighton, editor of the Journal of Consumer Research.

“Breakfast cereals are not stocked end-of-box out,” he says. “You want to your product to be as enticing as possible. It’s a little bizarre that it’s taken booksellers this long to realize that the point of self-service is to make the product as tempting as possible.”

“To be as enticing as possible…” As in to pick up the book, look inside and decide to purchase it! Continue reading “The Magic of Hyper-Links” »