Everywhere in creative media companies they come into play at some point. Business types who start talking about ‘efficiencies’ and ‘central control’. Who put the love of journalism, music, film, books – or whatever such a creative company sells – in second place and thus lose the accumulated creative capital.
Discussions with these types are always difficult. They come up with hard figures, I come up with a sick concept like love for the content. But from now on I will tell them the story of Barnes & Noble. This American bookshop chain opened its doors in 1886 and then had a top century. At its peak, Barnes & Noble had more than seven hundred stores. But then came, yes, Amazon. That was a bit scary.
Rather than differentiate itself from Amazon, Barnes & Noble tried to play Jeff Bezos’ game. The chain initiated large-scale discount campaigns and turned its businesses into a collection of sponsored bookcases. The more a publisher was willing to pay, the more prominent a book was in the shop. As a result, the Barnes & Noble stores lost their soul. Customers stayed away. There was nothing but pulp on the shelves and tables anyway.
In 2018, Barnes & Noble faced a $18 million loss and had to lay off nearly all of its full-time employees. Then Amazon also started its own bookstores. The humiliation. At first, Barnes & Noble failed to imitate Amazon, and now the giant started to compete with them in the high streets as well.
But then. A positive plot twist. In the person of James Daunt. This British diplomat’s son started his career as a banker. He had had enough of that at twenty-six. He started a bookshop in London. His adage: “Create an environment that is intellectually stimulating. Not in a snobbish way, but as food for the mind.” Turned out to be a great starting point, because his Daunt Books grew to six issues. When he then saved the British book chain Waterstones from destruction as director, Daunt became known as a bookshop doctor.
Guess who became the boss of Barnes & Noble? Right.
Book lover Daunt rolled out largely the same strategy at Barnes & Noble as at Waterstones. From now on, publishers no longer had any say in which book went where. From now on, each location was allowed to decide for itself which books they sold. Every Barnes & Noble had to feel like an independent bookstore, with those wooden tables with stacks of books and nice handwritten recommendations sticking out.
“In the age of Amazon, you can’t afford to be boring,” says Daunt. His approach works. In 2021, Barnes & Noble sold more books than before the pandemic. It opened sixteen new stores in 2022 and aims to double that number in 2023. Spicy: in Boston they are taking over flopped locations from Amazon.
Ernst-Jan Pfauth writes a column here every other week.
A version of this article also appeared in the January 9, 2023 newspaper