Chris Anderson’s article on The Long Tail made arguments I could appreciate as I have seen them at work firsthand. Not only from my personal experiences of shopping, but also from a business perspective. Working in a bookshop (Jesus I swear to god I’m not trying to spruik my workplace on here, it just comes in handy for examples!), I see his theories at work in the store microcosm.

New releases tend to be what get people into the store, they account for a large number of our sales and store traffic. Although our new release section is a huge draw card, we also really try to push our backlist fiction – books that aren’t new releases, but that make our brand look credible and well stocked. If we only sold new releases I feel like we would look superficial, as though we had no real appreciation of literature.

However, as Chris says, you can’t have a brand that is only long tail either – you need to get a substantial volume of customers through in the first place. We often have sales in our backlist section to encourage people to browse older, loved or obscure (or both) titles. But the more effective method, as Chris notes, is to coax customers down the long tail using recommendations. When customers tell me “I’ve just read X, can you recommend something similar?” the easy answer would be pointing to the book next to them, that is the same genre and a big seller. But they could do that themselves, by stepping an inch to the left and reading the blurb of its neighbor. Same goes for classics, ie if they liked Kurt Vonnegut, I should recommend Joseph Heller. But instead, I might suggest The Good Soldier Švejk (Jaroslav Hašek, 1923. Awesome read), leading the customer to a different area in the shop and hopefully broadening their horizons. This recommendation has expanded what they are willing to read or browse, increasing the likelihood that they will browse more areas, and therefore successfully find a book to buy, in future. But more than that, they will return to the store to seek my advice. If I had simply recommended another well-known classic they could go to any other bookshop and browse the classics section, my advice would’ve been little more than that. Same goes for new releases, instead of recommending Sylvia Day for a fan of EL James (50 Shades, *shudder*), I would suggest Josephine Hart – a book in a different section they wouldn’t have located otherwise. I like to think the combination of the good book, with the personalized experience is what keeps customers coming back, and keeps online from overtaking bricks and mortar retail.