As holidays approach, Borders to capitalize on physical locations

I thought this NYTimes article offers a nice bookend (no pun intended) to our presentation today on the future of physical booksellers: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/business/29borders.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=borders&st=Search.

In our group’s recommendations, we focused primarily on Barnes & Noble because Borders has been arguably the latest to the online retail and digital distribution game. But Borders has the right idea with temporary “pop-up” stores that the company is opening just for the holidays in small urban areas across the United States. The stores, called “Borders Express,” will carry limited inventories that include bestsellers, new releases, childrens’ books and holiday-themed items. The pop-up store model is an example of the smaller, strategic retail models that some big retailers (like Best Buy) are pursuing. It might be too late for Borders to climb out from under its mountain of debt, but the pop-up store concept is a great example of how superstores in various industries can leverage physical locations — innovation in the form of a return to the physical store concept — in their fight against online retailers and big box stores. It’s worth noting that according to this article, Target is also looking to capitalize on the pop-up store as a “flexible, attention-grabbing” way to showcase its products — but I think that physical booksellers have more to leverage in the ambiance department than your average Target.