The main difference between big box and indie bookstores was the attractiveness of the staff. This may seem glib, but the whole point of a book store was they were curated hangouts based on filters of what the staff would tolerate. Big box stores are accessible, but not attractive, they lack what was ultimately termed, "erotic capital."
Being interested in books or niche music was a pretty good filter for people. My book stacks are based on walking down the street with $20 in my pocket, and spending it somewhere I thought I would encounter some curated random personal encounters.
It was never about the products, it was about the community around it. The ability for owners to shoe out undesirable people is what made them attractive places to be. It was a rare retail experience where men and women could meet. Today the people in a "book" store full of scented candles and twee knicknacks that happens to sell books is too random a selection to make it a destination for anyone.
From what I can tell by the big box chain here, today, books are used as a loss leader to provide a decorative bourgeois shopping theme park experience. They mainly sell chocolate sugar candies, magazines (all of which exist on a spectrum of aspirational porn), and brickabrack from slave labour factories.
B&N's strategy will be interesting, as either they will be in the culture business, or the sugar-porn-junk business.
Being interested in books or niche music was a pretty good filter for people. My book stacks are based on walking down the street with $20 in my pocket, and spending it somewhere I thought I would encounter some curated random personal encounters.
It was never about the products, it was about the community around it. The ability for owners to shoe out undesirable people is what made them attractive places to be. It was a rare retail experience where men and women could meet. Today the people in a "book" store full of scented candles and twee knicknacks that happens to sell books is too random a selection to make it a destination for anyone.
From what I can tell by the big box chain here, today, books are used as a loss leader to provide a decorative bourgeois shopping theme park experience. They mainly sell chocolate sugar candies, magazines (all of which exist on a spectrum of aspirational porn), and brickabrack from slave labour factories.
B&N's strategy will be interesting, as either they will be in the culture business, or the sugar-porn-junk business.