Quote:
Originally Posted by carpetmojo
I've been here before, but......
Fairly frequent visits to my two local W/stones stores( one large one medium) and discussions with staff, lead me to think you and deekbee must have very unusual stores to have plentiful Sony's - here, the stands have gone, and they say information from the top says no plans to re-stock, they are just selling off remaining stock.
'Course, the Potter developments may alter things, as may the roubles ( or whatever currency it may be, I've misremembered......)
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Roubles?
The Potter developments MAY change things, but I'm sure I read somewhere that the new owner of Waterstone's believes that there is still overwhelming consumer demand for dead tree books and brick and mortar stores. I think the company and its suits really need to rethink their strategy if Waterstone's is to continue to have a visible presence on every high street.
They don't advertise at all in the stores I've been into that they sell ebooks. Their is/are no big touch screen display(s) where one can peruse (what should be a graphically impressive and intuitive) electronic catalogue, and see how much money they will save over the dead tree copy (yeah right - they will never see much of a saving if the agencies have their way). They can't put their debit card in this machine and by a book that is sent wirelessly to their device (sort it out Sony - that is one thing the Kindle does remarkably well).
I hear that some bookstores in North America (Borders?) have plenty of DIFFERENT eReaders on display for customers to play with; that's a start and is much better than the bookstores over here!
It will be interesting to see what the likes of Waterstone's and Blackwell's look like in five years time...
p.s. Never mind about about the rouble; a quick Google search and I knew what you meant.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...an-billionaire