"Barnes & Noble is doing a smart job of using their store traffic to build an e-book audience," said Mike Shatzkin, CEO of Ideal Logical Co., publishing consultants.
I disagree. I'm an author that derives the biggest percentage of my sales via Barnes & Nobles and a shareholder. I travel the country pretty extensively and I have been very disappointed at every store to find the "Nook Desk" (ie, area that usually sits in the entrance to the store displaying Nooks) underutilized by associates looking straight through you and not offering a demonstration of the product or worse not paying attention at all playing with the product.
I have a vested interest in Barnes and Nobel's success and I feel they could do a much better job pushing the products. In addition, B&N now offers free WiFi but every store that I have been in has limited seating that is not comfortable or seating only in the Cafe area.
This completely wastes the advantage of offering free WiFi and having a physical storefront. At best, I would say B&N is doing an "okay" job of using their store traffic to build an e-book audience. They would do much better if they focused on the two areas mentioned above.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303795304576453882840821172.htm...%3Darticle
