It Would Sell Itself If They Had Just Called It “Nookie”

The appeal of Amazon has always been that you don’t have to get off your ass to shop. Excellently lazy. Barnes & Noble, meanwhile, puts the lazy into its stores with big chairs and Starbucks cafes. Now that both booksellers have electronic readers – and what could be lazier than turning pages with your thumb? – the smackdown is on.

And B&N is making its play by both going old school and looking ahead.

NYT:

In September, the chain will begin an aggressive promotion of its Nook e-readers by building 1,000-square-foot boutiques in all of its stores, with sample Nooks, demonstration tables, video screens and employees who will give customers advice and operating instructions.

By devoting more floor space to promoting the Nook, Barnes & Noble is playing up what it calls a crucial advantage over Amazon in the e-reader war: its 720 bricks-and-mortar stores, where customers can test out the device before they commit to buying it.

“I think that’s everything,” William Lynch, chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview. “American consumers want to try and hold gadgets before they purchase them.”

Amazon’s Kindle e-reader is for sale on Amazon.com and in Target and HMSHost stores.

Barnes & Noble has already installed small counters in its stores where customers can test out the Nook. The new display space would be much larger, and it would be located next to each store’s cafe, to encourage customers to stop by the Nook space, coffee or tea in hand.

Points for placement, B&N. And points for foresight in making room for the expanded Nook boutiques by clearing out some of the CD bins. (Can you remember the last time you bought a CD?) Pretty soon, B&N will be thinking about moving all the music online.