If You Can’t Beat Them, Harness Them

A recent article at Bloomberg Businessweek details an ongoing turnaround at bookselling chain Barnes & Noble. An effort the publication dubs a “radical retail experiment.”

Central to this turnaround are efforts by the only remaining US national bookstore chain’s efforts to occupy a “singular middle ground” between Amazon and indie bookstores.

Currently, more than 70% of books are purchased online, the article notes. And well over half of all books are purchased on Amazon. Meanwhile, only 10% of Barnes & Noble’s overall sales are made through its website.

Online and social media trends, however, have become central to the chain’s retail strategy. Several years ago, for example, people started appearing on TikTok in Barnes & Noble stores across the country armed with shopping baskets and timers. As well as game plans for how they were going to hoard as many books as possible.

Known as the Birthday Book Challenge, this trend grew organically out of a formal partnership between TikTok and Barnes & Noble. And with the force of the algorithm, the dare went viral, with friends and family members often picking up the bill for birthday hauls.

Online communities such as Goodreads, Reddit threads and book-recommendation apps and influencers are also bolstering the retail chain. Right now these all converge on BookTok, the corner of TikTok devoted by all things books.

Within BookTok, readers frequently find new books by way of personalities instead of traditional reviewers, who tend to focus more on the usual suspects of publishing. Genres and formats once met with dismissal, such as romantasy and Jane Austen novels, are finding enthusiastic new audiences. By keeping up with these trends, Barnes & Noble has been able to keep pulling in the terminally online.

The chain is also finding opportunity in so-called “bookstore deserts.” Such as Visala, CA, a rural city of 150,000 that hadn’t had a bookstore since Borders closed in 2011. These locations may open with more generic inventory before they home in on what sells best. Whether that’s books or other merchandise.

In Visalia, for example, books about agriculture are much easier to spot. But the store location also places a much larger emphasis on what might be called “lifestyle pursuits” beyond the literary, including gifts, games, greeting cards and toys. As well as an entire Harry Potter section with Lego and crochet kits, and plush figurines in addition to books. Annual memberships give frequent local visitors discounts, loyalty points and free shipping.

All of which illustrates what Barnes & Noble’s “singular middle ground” might actually entail. Instead of viewing online trends purely as a threat, the chain has leveraged them to turn internet culture into foot traffic. Revitalizing its brick-and-mortar spaces, and customizing inventory to fit the unique pulse of each community it enters.

The question now, perhaps, is how permanently this hybrid approach can truly hold off the convenience of e-commerce.