One of the lessons I learned a long time ago is that to be successful we need to monitor what is happening in other retail sectors before we can understand what is happening in our own retail sector. We can then implement new ideas in our own business.

A recent report on the book retail industry in the USA illustrated this to me yet again.

The book industry was traditionally a sector that was dominated by independent retailers, but that has now changed. The chain sector has around 21% of the market in the USA and independent retailers have about the same percentage. Big Box stores have approximately 10%, Book Clubs 10% and on-line retailers 20%.

This is a market sector that has moved to a situation where there is no dominant retail outlet, but has seen a major change in the distribution channels over recent years. The independent retailers now have to try harder to get a slice of the action.

What can we learn from this sector?
I believe the way people buy books can tell us a lot about how we should be marketing our own business. For example, according to research carried out by Greenleaf Books and published in February  2010, 59% of books are sold due to publicity, 42% due to staff recommendations, 23% because they are a best seller, 33% due to advertising, 11% because of window or counter displays and 7% due to shelf talkers.

Think about your own marketing campaigns and think about how much product is sold due to internal low cost marketing campaigns.  For example, staff recommendations, displays and signage make up 60% of public awareness.  Traditional advertising is only creating one third of the awareness in the market place.

In fact, take a look at most retail counters and you will often see lost opportunities.  Opportunities are lost either because nothing is being promoted at the counter, or there is such a large variety of stock on the counter that the customer gets confused and does not make an add-on purchase.
Online market awareness is now critical to any business success.  It is also interesting to see how it is developing in the book industry and to assess whether there anything other retail industries can learn from that sector.

On Line Awareness       Women        Men       Under 35’s
Use Search Engine             55%            60%       65%
Author Blog                          30%            28%       39%
Social Networking             19%            20%       25%
Online Advertisements    15%             13%      20%

In most retail situations, women are the buyers and they are more confident using the computer as a search engine and marketing tool than the majority of men.  Plus, as you would expect, the next generation coming through, male and female, use the computer as a major means of searching out what they want and when they want it.  They are looking for people they can trust and the Internet has become a major marketing tool.

What is highlighted is that yet again the traditional advertising is being replaced with what people are saying, whether it be the author or their friends. People talking to people has become a major influence again.  Before we had sophisticated marking tools, we relied on people talking to each other to grow a business.  This has now gone full circle and people communicating with other people is once again how product or service trust is built.  The same applies in all retail sectors which is why I am a great believer in the power of the social media and the need for all retailers to get involved in this avenue of communication.   It is also interesting to look at what motivates a person to buy a book.  Let’s take a look and see if other retailers can learn from that experience.

According to the Greenleaf Books research, the motivators are as follows:

Author Reputation                                             52%
Friends Recommendation                                49%
Price                                                                      45%
Book Review                                                        37%
Cover Artwork                                                      22%
Advertising                                                            14%

Clearly consumers are buying for a number of reasons.  However Greenleaf’s research showed that advertising was the lowest motivator and reputation was the highest motivator.  Many of my local bookstores have argued that price is always the main motivator, but this seems to be rarely the case in the consumers mind, unless book items are sold on price.  Supermarkets have introduced leading authors paperbacks as commodity lines as loss leaders to grow other sales.

We need to focus on the factors that make a difference in the market place. Again the human element of author reputation and recommendation are a major influence. Those people communication skills are coming out again.

Book retailers today are finding that they are having to change the way they market and sell books, the same as other retailers have to consider in all retail sectors.

Retailers are having to relook at how they use social networking to grow sales, how they can use their team as the experts and the customers friend to grow sales.  Retailers still need to develop merchandising and signage, but now need to look at new ways of marketing, the old ways are slowly slipping away.

The Five Key Lessons From Book Sellers:

1 Make sure your sales team are knowledgeable about the products
2 Make sure the team can engage the customer to pass that knowledge on
3 Join in Social media websites
4 The Window display and counter display are critically important
5 Shelf Talkers grow sales

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