Borders Showing More Covers Face-Out *UPDATED

In what can only be considered good news for cover designers, Borders, the mega-bookstore chain, has implemented a new policy of showing more books face-out. According to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg's article, this is the brainchild of the new CEO. Taking lessons from clothing and grocery retailers the stores will now stock 5-10% less titles in order to accommodate the new policy.

Some think this is long overdue:

"Unlike modern supermarkets, booksellers haven't done enough to make books look attractive on the shelves, says John Deighton, editor of the Journal of Consumer Research.
"Breakfast cereals are not stocked end-of-box out," he says. "You want to your product to be as enticing as possible. It's a little bizarre that it's taken booksellers this long to realize that the point of self-service is to make the product as tempting as possible."

*UPDATED*
More good discussion here, here, and here.

Comments

[Barry A. Smith]

Great post. Also great news. Thanks Chris.