First off, I must admit that I don’t think I’d ever before noticed the apostraphe in Waterstone’s name. I certainly don’t believe I used it before. My mistake.
Anyhow, Tim Waterstone has launched a bid to buy back the book chain from parent company HMV. HMV, of course, had been thinking about a buyout of rival chain Ottaker’s. That got referred to the Competition Commission who’ve essentially said it’s fine to go ahead.
In the meantime, WH Smith is thought to also be mulling over launching a bid for Ottaker’s having recently put more importance into books in their stores.
I saw one of the new WH Smiths Books standalone stores the other day at Liverpool Street station, but I couldn’t obviously see that it was carrying any more titles than the two nearby traditional stores that are also to be found around the station. My local store has definitely reduced their CD and DVD shelf space, but it hasn’t gone to books.
What I find amazing, is that if you visit either Borders or Waterstones to buy books online, you end up dealing with Amazon, their biggest competitor (aside from the supermarkets).
I’ve said before that more retailers need to follow the Argos way of working with combined electronic/bricks & mortar offereings. Argos has the stock control system obviously, but the idea that I can get an online(ish) price and pick-up in-store would be great.
Here’s how it could work.
I really want to read Lisa Jardine’s biography of Robert Hooke.
I search the Waterstone’s website.
The Waterstone’s stock control can’t find any in my nearby Piccadilly Circus branch, but the Gower Street branch is reporting a single copy.
Because there’s only one copy there, it can’t be certain that I’ll find it when I’m in store. It might have been stolen, it put back by some absent minded customer in the gardening section. But with daily deliveries from the Waterstone’s warehouse, it can guarantee a copy will be delivered tomorrow.
The retail price for the book is £9.99. Amazon would charge me £6.59. But Waterstone’s will charge me £8.49 ordering the book this way.
Yes Amazon costs less, but I can get the book quicker than I can from Amazon since I can go to the store tomorrow. Amazon could send it out first class, but that’s going to cost me a few quid. Indeed their Super Saver Delivery won’t kick in until I spend £15. Ordinarily it’s going to take a day or two longer before I get the book from Amazon.
Could this model work? Well, assuming that bookstores do get daily deliveries, and the warehouses are fully computerised, then, yes, it could. The “copies in stock” model may need tweaking. Do I send a customer to a shop if it says it’s carrying a single copy, or five copies? New technologies including inserting RFID chips into each book should allow improvements in stock control.
How do you rationlise charging online customers less than in-store ones? I don’t know. Either introduce across-the-board reductions or maybe consider an online customer as a better one since they’re likely to be certain purchasers. Yes, I can forsee myself standing in Waterstones reserving the book I’m holiding to save myself £1.50, but then you’re getting some valuable CRM data about me in return. It’s a bit like the deal you do (or don’t do) with Boots or Tesco by taking their loyalty cards. (Obviously, I don’t do that deal, and really couldn’t care less that I could have “saved” 13p if I had a Boots Advantage Card – I just consider that I’ve been overcharged 13p and think about taking my custom to Superdrug next time).