Turning Browsers into Borrowers: Adapting retail techniques for the library

© Opening the Book Ltd

Turning browsers into borrowers

Adapting retail techniques

for the library

Fiona Edwards

Opening the Book

www.openingthebook.com


Evidence of shopping behaviour

• Paco Underhill: Why we buy – the science of shopping

• 50% of people buy the first thing they touch

• 72% of purchases are made on impulse


Retail techniques to tempt browsers

• Display ‘hot spots’ – accessible stock close to entrance

• Less is more – make choosing easier

• Eye level is buy level – comfortable browsing

• Let the product be king – remove competing visual clutter


What libraries can learn from bookshops

Bookshops are different from libraries – but there are useful things that we can learn from the way they display books.

• Location

• Face-on books

• Clear, minimal signage

• Full, rich displays


Location


Angles


Face-on books on free-standing displays


Face-on books on library shelves


Signage using bookshop categories


Well-stocked, attractive displays tempt readers


What book shops do well but libraries find more difficult

• Multiple copies

• Bestsellers and Top Ten Titles



What libraries can do instead – and better!

• Quick Choice

• On-shelf merchandising

• Reader-to-reader promotion


First impressions: Quick Choice tempts browsers with attractive book covers


Less is more: Quick Choice makes choosing easier


Face-on display on library shelves clearly brands non-fiction areas


Face-on display on library shelves introduces new reading experiences to browsers – of any age


Feature shelf offers readers the Quick Choice experience on the library shelves


Enthusiastic borrowers are a great resource – encourage reader-to reader recommendation


Frontline course

• Interactive online course for frontline staff in the adult lending library

• Can be taken anywhere anytime

• All you need is internet access and an email address (can be hotmail)

• Can be taken in variable timeslots from 5 minutes to 2 hours

• 7 authorities in Scotland using the course


Sample online exercise


Interactive learning


Feedback from Scottish Frontline trainees

‘I found the course enjoyable, easy to do and very relevant. Would thoroughly recommend it - it's a great way to really find out what our readers want, how to engage with them and how to tempt them to try something new ... It also makes you question your own prejudices and assumptions about what libraries should provide for readers. Very reader friendly, very staff friendly too.’

‘It was very useful having the discussion forum - to hear about the experiences of others around the country. I think you can become quite 'isolated' within your branch and stuck in your ways too!’

‘I work in an all male prison and feel I have to constantly struggle to encourage users to borrow books. This course has given me new skills and helped me to develop new ideas to help promote reader development.’


Frontline: Browsers into borrowers

• An additional four-module course for Frontline graduates

• Shows how building simple but effective merchandising approaches into daily routines will help get books issues

• Helps frontline staff gain confidence in promoting all kinds of stock in any library situation

• Explores non-fiction, large print, children’s and teenage books and DVDs as well as fiction


Frontline: Browsers into Borrowers


www.openingthebook.com


Skill development with Frontline


Feedback from staff using Browsers into Borrowers

‘This course has certainly made me aware of how important it is to try and turn browsers into borrowers by showing them through the way we market our stock that there is something they will enjoy reading in their local library!’

‘One task from this course that was very effective was to 'adopt a book' from a less popular section of non-fiction. The book I chose looked to be quite a light-hearted, easy read, but was tucked away in the Money section. By placing it on the Quick Choice face-on display at the entrance to the library, it proved very popular and issued within a couple of hours.’

‘Displaying books at eye level to attract those customers who don't know what they are looking for (especially if the covers are colourful and attractive) can make a big difference to the route that borrowers take when browsing.’

‘I found that it is possible to make even fairly dull areas of the non-fiction section much more appealing by judicious face-on display.’

Education

Turning Browsers into Borrowers: Adapting retail techniques for the library