The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Borders in the US were trialling a front-face strategy where a much larger number of books were merchandised facing out. The result was a reduction in inventory of 5-10% and an increase in sales of 9%.
As any publisher knows – if you can get more faces you will get more sales. However, retailers usually limit the face-books to new releases or special promotions. They are usually concerned that the reduction in range will hurt sales in the long run.
Well, get this: Borders conducted research and found that customers actually thought they had more stock as a result of this strategy!!
If this catches on, then publishers will have to develop new strategies to ensure more of their titles get face time. Otherwise you could lose 5-10% of your sales!
My suggestion is to look carefully at cover designs, themes and develop face packages.
Read the WSJ article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120528554163329185.html
Philip Dennett
Tags: Add new tag, books, marketing, publishing, strategy
