Is Barnes and Noble for women only?

[J. Strnad]

When I visit bn.com, it strikes me as being designed for women. Most of the books seem oriented toward women (though not all are) and the design of the pages just seems incredibly feminine.

Are they consciously wooing the female market?

[ATDrake]

Considering articles over the years which have stated that statistically, women read more and buy more books for themselves and others to read, and that sales of romance novels dwarf all the other categories of genre and literary materials combined, I wouldn't hold it against B&N if they did deliberately orient their website to women as a market.

I couldn't comment on the content, but the actual page seems to have a rather clean, reasonably aesthetic uncluttered design which I personally like and consider gender-neutral. Too bad their site is missing some functionality which would make it easier to use as well as good-looking.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I couldn't comment on the content, but the actual page seems to have a rather clean, reasonably aesthetic uncluttered design which I personally like and consider gender-neutral. Too bad their site is missing some functionality which would make it easier to use as well as good-looking.

Personally, one of the reasons I stopped shopping at Amazon years ago was that I really hate the way its website looks and works. I much prefer B&N's look. I always find it difficult to locate a book at Amazon unless I know either the ISBN, author, or title. In the very olden days, Amazon had filters that I could use, but then it changed its website and omitted the filters I use. Things may be better today at Amazon (I haven't been to Amazon in several years), but as I said, I like B&N's look and filtering.

I was never a fan of the one-click shopping because it eliminated a step that gave me an opportunity to rethink whether I really wanted to make the purchase. I know people love it, but I don't mind an extra click or two that gives me an opportunity to change my mind.

I'm not sure what functionality ATDrake thinks is missing at B&N. I like the options for narrowing down my choices and I haven't noted any missing functionality. But that doesn't mean there isn't some missing functionality, just that I haven't noticed it.

[haydnfan]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

When I visit bn.com, it strikes me as being designed for women. Most of the books seem oriented toward women (though not all are) and the design of the pages just seems incredibly feminine.

Are they consciously wooing the female market?

Most of the books? what all 2 million of them? Their catalog is gender neutral. The design of the store is visual (browsing b cover, but you can change it) so that it feels like browsing a bookstore. The top bestsellers are usually romances because they outsell everything else. BN is not marketing specifically to women.