Via BusinessPundit and A Penny For, we find an excerpt of Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and its Impact on Consumer Culture. It discusses how one independent bookseller Wild Rumpus Books competes with the big boys:
Competent, creative independent retailers don�t need to use resistance tactics in order to survive. These merchants understand that, to compete successfully, they must provide something that customers can�t get anywhere else. To run a specialty store that successfully competes with category killers, you have to specialize to an even greater degree. Small, independent booksellers are another category of retailers that need to find a niche if they hope to survive....We'ver previously discussed independent bookstores here and noted one tangentially here.The problem with many small independents is that they got into the business because they loved books�not necessarily because they loved selling books. One bookseller who both loves books and loves selling books in a creative way is Collette Morgan, co-owner, with her husband Tom Braun, of the children�s bookstore Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis. In 1992, Morgan, a veteran of the book business, decided to open a store that would be �something a corporate mind would never dream up and that a large company could never sustain; a place that would sell children a good time along with their reading material.�
Posted by Kevin on January, 31 2005 at 02:29 PM
