Matt Blind has written a disturbingly accurate light and humourous piece on the different types of customers who visit bookstores.
Grazers
Grazers don’t need a book, or want a book, but they love coming in to the bookstore, and love lingering leisurely over all the tables, racks, endcaps, promotional displays, and front-of-store placements. If they can do this while a bookseller is attempting to replenish or reset the display, all the better.
The only redeeming feature of a grazer is that they can only accomplish their task with a cup of coffee in their hand — pardon, with a $4 half-soy-half-decaf-latte-with-a-shot-of-pretention — and while they clog the main aisle and generally pose a hazard to navigation, they are mostly harmless. They might try to casually engage you conversation, “How’s Business?”, but they don’t really care. Their primary goal is being in a bookstore for an hour each week so they can insert an off-hand, “oh I saw that the other day at Big Box Books” in later conversations, proving to their friends that they are topical and literate.
Bonus: They buy coffee. Margins on coffee are excellent.
From “Rethinking the Box: The Seven Types of Customer“
My store didn’t sell coffee (apparently we were missing out on a huge opportunity here) but it certainly reads familiar. Continue reading »
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There are hundreds of literary blogs out there and I subscribe to several dozen of them, but recently I’ve pared down my RSS subscriptions again, and thought I’d share five of my favourites.