Category Report: Book Merchandising

According to industry insiders, large chain bookstores with sophisticated brand identities -- namely Barnes & Noble and Borders -- increasingly insist upon ruggedly elegant displays and won't accept or tolerate corrugated dumps that aren't built to last. However, in an ironic twist, those same retailers are known for taking P-O-P down early.This trend goes beyond the major chains, too. Jeffrey Smith, a marketing director at Tyndale House Publishers, a Christian book publisher in Carol Stream, IL, says endcap kits with headers and shelf talkers are a Christian bookstore staple, but in the past decade, the length of time that stores keep them up has decreased from about three months to two to four weeks. On the bright side, publishing houses have found greater P-O-P opportunities than ever before in supermarkets and alternate channels. These one-stop retailers, and others branching into book sales, need displays simply because they don't have their own merchandising fixtures in place.A New ChapterAccording to the Book Industry Study Group, one in every four book purchases occurs in a retail outlet other than a bookstore, including mass merchants, supermarkets, club stores, gift shops, home improvement stores, gardening centers and specialty retailers of every stripe. "P-O-P displays are occurring wherever an aggressive person can talk their way into the space," says Jan Nathan, executive director of PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association.She points to author Greg Godek as an example. As a tie-in to Valentine's Day, he persuaded Victoria's Secret lingerie stores to buy counter displays filled with his book, "1,001 Ways to Be Romantic." With this type of arrangement, retailers buy the books outright and generally expect a 50% discount, plus the display, Nathan says. This eliminates returns -- a necessary evil when dealing with bookstores, which sell on consignment.But cranking out P-O-P for such markets doesn't always pay off. The profit potential must be weighed against the expense, says Greg Stielstra, a senior marketing director for the book group at Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, TN. "As we sell decorating books to Pottery Barn or fashion books to Brooks Brothers, we need displays that integrate our books into these new environments, but it's a challenge because such stores may not order many copies, and it can be difficult to justify the displays' cost based on the return on investment," says Stielstra, author of the book "PyroMarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life." Two years ago, "Publishers Weekly" reported that mass-market retailers, including supermarkets, discount stores and club stores, had woken up to the profit potential in children's books. The following year, mass merchants joined national and independent bookstores with midnight parties for the July 16, 2005, release of the sixth "Harry Potter" book. Mass merchants have since awakened to the profitability of adult titles as well, but kids' books, especially those tied to hot licensed properties, are especially well-suited for the channel.Customization and Exclusives are KeyLight years ahead of the curve, Advance Publishers in Maitland, FL, has sold children's book series, via continuity programs, almost exclusively through supermarkets since 1946. Continuity programs usually are associated with dishware; each week, shoppers stop in to buy a new piece -- a saucer or a soup bowl, perhaps -- and pretty soon, they own the complete set. President Adam Morgan says partnerships with Disney and other licensors, along with fun and informative P-O-P, are key to making the model successful for children's books. "We have an endcap display that is 4 feet wide and approximately 9 feet high, so it's a monster," he says. "This gives us the ability to merchandise our books in a way that probably has a much greater impact than books being sold in a bookstore or certainly any other channel." Each endcap program runs for eight to 12 weeks. The sturdy, fluted-corrugate displays house books in the center, with additional cubbies for accessories such as stickers and backpacks. When a supermarket's endcap locations are all booked up, Advance Publishers offers a four-sided floor display. The floorstand for the Disney princess series is shaped like a castle, complete with die-cut turrets. "We're not just creating P-O-P; we're creating a destination," Morgan says. With much to communicate to parents, the text is as important as the visuals, he says. In addition to pricing, artfully arranged text needs to convey the books' release schedules, the fact that each title is a limited-edition collectible, and that promotional giveaways like coloring books or posters come with the purchase of certain titles.Because Advance Publishers offers geographic exclusivity to participating supermarkets, the continuity program "becomes a way for stores to further distinguish themselves from their competitors," Morgan says. He adds that he is not surprised that more supermarkets are breaking into bookselling to convey a one-stop shopping image, nor is he surprised that more publishers are eyeing supermarkets as a prospective market: "A small percentage of the population goes to bookstores. Virtually everybody goes to supermarkets, and they go there frequently," he says. As publishers take aim at mass markets, their P-O-P must adapt to the needs and rigors of those environments, says Christopher Campbell, senior vice president of marketing for Publications International Ltd., based in Lincolnwood, IL. Each Publications International display that is destined for a mass-market retailer has three or four different fastening capabilities to ensure compatibility with the retailers' differing shelf configurations. Fastener types are just the tip of the customization iceberg, says Mary McAveney, vice president of marketing for Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, New York City. "We do very different floor displays for our book retailers and our independent stores than we would for a CVS or a Wal-Mart, where we would work with the accounts to create displays that make sense for the channel," she says. "So for a mass merchant, we'd offer a display that's probably a bit larger and carries more licensed or lower-price-point products."Despite diminishing opportunities for P-O-P in the major bookstore chains, large publishing houses still have an assured presence within the channel. But smaller publishers seldom are represented, says Nathan of PMA. "Previously, the trend had been to fully customize displays for each and every book you wanted P-O-P for," says Frank Matonti, vice president of sales for West Orange, NJ-based City Diecutting Inc., a P-O-P display manufacturer catering almost exclusively to the book publishing industry. The costs associated with customization "kind of eliminated the opportunity for small- and medium-sized publishers to get that all-important face-out presentation in stores," he adds.The past three years have seen a shift as stock displays become the norm, especially in alternative channels. The standard-sized dumps are semi-customizable, so marketers can specify branding on the header, and small and large publishers alike are taking advantage of this offering. Chains Pass On P-O-PBarnes & Noble and Borders have invested much to establish consistent, compelling brand identities and therefore are exerting more control over P-O-P, which could potentially compete with or detract from the stores' own branding.This exertion of control takes various forms. Cheryl Kerwin, a marketing manager for Tyndale's fiction and youth divisions, says bookstores often produce their own signage to promote popular titles, and while their goal is to create P-O-P that is consistent with the retail environment, they sometimes are receptive to incorporating complementary graphics provided by the publisher.Tyndale's catalog and sales representatives inform retailers that such graphics are available for downloading off the Internet. As a result, Barnes & Noble might produce promotional signage incorporating the distinctive logo and font for Tyndale's bestselling "Left Behind" fiction series, but the color scheme would be Barnes & Noble's signature green and beige, Kerwin says. Barnes & Noble and Borders declined to be interviewed for this report, but industry experts concur that both retailers have fairly exacting standards when it comes to P-O-P; hence, fewer and fewer vendor-produced displays actually make it out onto the floor. For major publishing houses with deep pockets and stratospheric sales, diminishing P-O-P opportunities aren't necessarily problematic."I've noticed that the displays that do make it onto the floor, at least in the major book retailers, are for very top key properties, and that the publishers have done really creative things with them," says McAveney of Simon & Schuster. Major publishing houses with several key properties and budgets big enough to produce top-quality P-O-P not only stand a better chance of selling in displays, but also enjoy opportunities to secure precious bookstore real estate. "For a Borders or a Barnes & Noble, whether they're doing an endcap promotion or a front-of-store table or a holiday table or a power stacker, there are many different levels of retail merchandising that you can be part of without actually producing corrugated displays," says McAveney.Most consumers who encounter a "New Arrivals" or "Summer Reading" table near the front of a Barnes & Noble or Borders store probably don't realize that the tabletop is premium, paid-for real estate. And as with all real estate, it's all about location, says PMA's Nathan. "Ninety percent of the time, when you see a book out in the front of the store, the publisher has paid for the privilege of being there," she says.McAveney describes the arrangement as a "cooperative financial structure," whereby publishers actually earn the privilege based on their level of sales.What Retailers WantAs a marketing tool, P-O-P displays are especially crucial in the book trade, says Matonti of City Diecutting. "Think about it: These publishers have spent an inordinate amount of money on the book jacket or cover, so to have a book go out into the marketplace and end up on a shelf so just the spine shows is counterproductive," he says. "So the whole point of a P-O-P display is to get a face-out presentation." What do publishers need to do to surpass the national chains' censorial standards for P-O-P? According to Matonti, aesthetics are paramount: "Anything that looks less than classy is not going to be put up in the chains anymore." Of course, issues besides aesthetics also come into play. "I think the biggest thing for retailers is space," McAveney says. "I think they're looking for a very specific footprint for a display. It has to be narrow enough so it's not interfering with the flow of traffic, so no one's tripping over it. It becomes a safety issue."Looking back over Tyndale's track record with Barnes & Noble and Borders, Smith says, "Where we've had the most success is to take a specialty product tied to a specialty season and create a custom display with a small footprint." For example, in January, to capitalize on spiritually based New Year's resolutions, Tyndale produced a floor display for Barnes & Noble to merchandise a selection of one-year Bibles, which are broken down so that people can read the Old and New testaments over a 12-month period involving daily reading.All bookselling channels, not just the chains, are fond of "no-brainer" displays that arrive preassembled and stocked with product, says Campbell of Publications International. "Store clerks don't have time to fold corrugate and probably don't care much how well it comes together, so it's a good idea for P-O-P to come right out of the carton and be ready to go." Independents Band Together To combat competition from national chains as well as mass-market and online retailers, independent bookstores tout their specialized understanding of literature through the American Booksellers Association's "Book Sense" program. This national marketing initiative generates the Book Sense Bestseller List, which runs in more than a dozen newspapers as well as in U.S. News and World Report and on CSPAN, and Book Sense Picks, a monthly selection of eclectic new books. Book Sense also offers gift cards redeemable at hundreds of independent bookstores.For most independent bookstores, space constraints are a big concern, and due to publishers' discount policies, the stores often are overwhelmed with more P-O-P than they can possibly use. René Kirkpatrick, the buyer for All for Kids Books & Music in Seattle, says Simon & Schuster is the only publisher that offers her a discount for buying a certain number of books without obligating her to accept a display. She wishes more publishers would do the same. "It's an environmental issue," she says. "It's a waste of paper. Our recycling bin is filled with displays within a week of their arrival."All for Kids does use some vendor displays, but as is the case with many independents, the store generates its own personality-infused P-O-P, such as a Staff Favorites rack with handwritten reviews. Bells and WhistlesAll for Kids' decidedly low-tech approach to P-O-P runs counter to what Tyndale and some other publishing houses are doing. Smith, head of marketing for Tyndale's Bible division, turned to technology after industry research showed that 48% of people who go shopping for a Bible don't end up buying one because of the confounding array of options. To decrease that walkout rate, Tyndale deployed 500 electronic Bible Selection Centers to independent Christian bookstores in April. The battery-operated shelf units feature headphones, audio prompts and a keypad. Based on the consumer's responses to a series of questions, the unit recommends a short list of Bibles representing all four major Bible publishers, not just Tyndale. Publications International also relies on battery-powered demo or audio displays to convey critical information about products.The company's electronic P-O-P undergoes power-drain testing to ensure that 10,000 consumer interactions take place before the batteries expire. At that point, Campbell expects that the displays will be tossed: "In general, retailers don't want anything to do with maintaining a display, even if it's as simple as replacing a battery."Electronics aside, P-O-P is getting more creative visually as publishers start to regard it as an extension of a book's cover, complete with special printing techniques such as foiling and embossing, McAveney says."We actually just recently toured some of our accounts as an executive group from Simon & Schuster, and some of the displays we saw were really remarkable," she says. "I'm seeing a lot more displays that have specifications like motion or sound or foiling or lenticular risers that change images as you walk by them."

Category Report: Book Merchandising

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