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September 07, 2007
Service in bookshops and how Kinokuniya made less money today
Bookshops are exposed to a tremendous amount of competition today. It is not that a MPH, Times Bookshop, Borders or Kinokunyia are isolated from global competition, on the contrary.
Amazon is looming, more and more books can be read online, Google is categorising books online etc. And then, there is the competition outside of the book industry. Books compete for the time of people, and the time people spend elsewhere takes time away from reading books.
Any minute I am watching TV, sit in the traffic jam, watch a movie in the movies, write in my blog, or even work on proposals for trainings and coaching, is time taken away from the book industry.
So yes, bookshops fight for every minute a customer spends on books. That is why some bookshops attempt to create a more leisurely environment, such as MPH and their attached area to drink coffee and eat, Borders with their StarBucks, or Kinokunyia with the restaurants (even so I don't quite understand why consumers cannot bring books inside the shops but must pay first before they can drink a coffee there. It is a contradiction to me!).
Those working in a bookshop need to be knowledgeable about the location of the books and may be even about the content of certain bestsellers. Otherwise, how come they have a shelf indicating bestsellers.
Anyway - I was in Kinokuniya today, and had an inquiry for a couple of books and mind you, my books are not necessarily the cheapest around.
I learnt that two of the books were not available and was sent to the bookshelfs where the other two books were suppose to be. Send to the linguistic and the finance and investment secion.
Then I got lost!!!
I couldn't find the book and once again, I realised that Kinokuniya is pretty messily organised. Sad. Usually, those at the counter are helpful, however, they weren't today. Even one of the staff outside the counter just send me to the section, and didn't help me to find the books.
So I went off. I seriously hadn't have the time to search for a long time on the shelves. I went to Times Bookshop and sadly, the books were sold out in their shop as well.
Next stop will be MPH. And I believe that I can find the books there. And that is how Kinokuniya made about RM200-300 less today than they could have.
Because, as a consumer I have the choice and do use my choice widely.
There are bookshops that
Posted by Andreas at September 7, 2007 06:04 PM
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