The Bookstore of the Future.
Image © Gensler
Design alone will not save the bookshop and with numerous new creative opportunities emerging that combine the virtual world, branding, mobile technology, and pop-up with retail, many of our retail clients are left wondering 'where do we go next?' Customers are becoming less predictable and more volatile, which is shifting the retail experience to have a new focus not about product, but about the overall experience and level of service. Thus creating the need for a unified approach to the virtual and physical shopping experience that truly delivers something better.
Just such an opportunity arose when The Economist's sister publication, Intelligent Life, approached our London office to design a hypothetical bookshop geared for survival in the digital age. Our vision completely reinvented the bookshop, it encourages literary sampling of all kinds: grabbing a paperback, browsing in a cosy chair, building a customised reading list, self-publishing an essay, or attending book clubs or author events. The storefront even incorporates a touchscreen for downloading e-books 24/7.
With bookshops closing down faster than ever before my colleague Jon Tollit rightly points out to Intelligent Life that, for the bookstore to survive in the electronic age retailers need to create an environment that blends technology and authentic experience, but allows the user to opt out of either. "Those same elements could be combined differently in other places. It's about giving people choices." To find out how Gensler proposes to save the bookshop watch our video which explores why our tl;dr store could be the bookstore to save all bookstore's.
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