If you have worked in academic libraries for any length of time, you have heard people say that libraries should be more like a business, more like a bookstore, that we should learn from the retail trade. While I have thought of this in incidental ways, I had not given it serious consideration though I did recognize some “retail expressions” in how students interact with the library. I do know that students have picked up many expressions from the retail trade; bricks and mortar as well as online. It is not uncommon for a student to ask if they can rent a laptop, or rent a movie, even though they do not expect to pay. This terminology is direct from retail.
For the last several weeks I have been doing a seasonal sales job at Crate and Barrel (https://www.crateandbarrel.com/). If you’re not familiar with Crate and Barrel, it is a home goods store selling everything from glassware to sofas. It’s moderately upper-end in terms of its pricing and clientele. This retail experience has given me the opportunity to reflect on what academic libraries might learn from retail, and perhaps where, academic libraries are already ahead of the game.
In reflecting on this experience, I think there are many areas where libraries and retail intersect in interesting ways. Are there things we can learn from each other? Perhaps so. Here is a starting list of areas.
· Customer/Guest/User/Patron: Libraries and retail use a variety of words to describe the people who use their services. Retail typically has used “customer”, though “guest” seems to be the preferred term by some. Libraries have often used “patron” or “user” when speaking in a generic sense, and students, or faculty, or community members when being more specific. I could suggest “customer”, “guest”, “user”, “patron” and someone (me included) would have an opinion on whether that is a good term. Some academic libraries have begun to use “customer” in recognition that the behavior of those who use our spaces and services, is shaped by the consumer marketplace. Personally, I find “guest” a somewhat insulting term to use in a context where the person is paying. I am not a “guest” at Crate and Barrel where money is expected for goods and services, nor am I guest in an academic library where I’m employed or paying tuition. As our culture becomes more diverse, I think both the library and retail need to think through the implications of the terms they use to ensure they are inclusive and not pejorative or insulting to particular groups.
· Upselling/cross-selling: Upselling (getting the customer to purchase a more expensive product or one with more features) and cross-selling (selling an additional or different product to a customer) are very common in retail and often sales associates are evaluated based on their success or one or both of these strategies.
Before readers dismiss this as only a retail phenomenon, reference and instruction librarians, in fact, practice these skills every day. A student comes to the reference desk (physically or virtually) with a topic and sometimes one or two sources. Regularly librarians try to upsell the student on using more sophisticated search tools to get article or books that are better, or more information rich. We regularly try to move students from Google to Google Scholar, or the library’s discovery services as they have more sophisticated features and can usually provide better results. Librarians regularly cross-sell by introducing students to new databases/sources that they had not considered, all in an attempt to help the student be successful, and ultimately more satisfied.
· Customer service: At one point in our history, academic libraries would have shied away from talking about “customer service” as it was considered too corporate and not academic. Fortunately, the world has changed and many libraries have taken up the customer service mantra and are seriously looking at lessons from retail in how they interact with students, faculty, and staff.
o Chat: Online chat is very common in retail, often with a chat box popping up if the online system senses hesitation, or the user’s inability/unwillingness to make a decision. The user can then interact with a customer service representative who hopefully can answer the user’s questions or direct them to an information source for an appropriate answer.
Libraries were early to implement chat services in response to the online environment. While these usually have been operated out of the reference/instruction department, many libraries are also using support staff and sometimes student workers to provide longer hours of service. A few libraries, like the University of Texas at San Antonio, have implemented context-sensitive chat systems similar to their retail counterparts.
o In Person: Libraries have historically provided a variety of in-person services. These typically are time and place-bound; assistance at a reference desk with set hours, library instruction, or workshops. Retail environments have depended on in-person assistance, with the amount and quality of that in person service varying over time and on whether the retail company was considered up-scale or not. Boutique establishments have taken a more proactive and nuanced customer approach that parallels the more personal approach that is available in some libraries.
o Roving: With the advent of mobile devices, many libraries have experimented with librarians, staff, and sometimes student assistants roving the library, offering services, and helping students with information and research questions. While some have found this to be effective, it had not been widely adopted, perhaps to the detriment of students. More upscale retail establishments have a plethora of roving staff, with or without mobile devices to ensure that customers are within easy reach of help.
· Customer Questions/Reference Interview: I have been intrigued and impressed by how some of the interactions I see between experienced salespeople and customers mirror a reference interview. A customer comes in with a half-formed idea of what they need/want and after a conversation and probing questions, there is greater clarity and the customer goes home with a purchase that closely matches what they really needed. I have spent most of my time at Crate and Barrel in the Kitchen Department, and my colleague, Carlos, with more than 20 years’ experience is a wonder at helping customers understand the variety of options on coffee makers, or high-end chef’s knives, or cookware. What seemed like a straightforward question might involve a 20-minute conversation and demonstration until the customer makes a purchase that suits their needs. Unfortunately, many retail organizations who focus only on stock turnover and profit, never keep and develop their people to have this type of expertise. This is one place that libraries tend to excel – both in the development of their people, and helping students/faculty figure out what they really need in terms of information sources.
· Search/Find: Libraries were early to the table in providing tools that allowed its users to search and find what the library owned by and about a particular author or subject. The library catalog, in some form, has been around for hundreds of years. The online catalog, which fully came into its own in the 1980s was precise in allowing someone to find a specific item, and access by subject worked reasonably well because of controlled vocabulary. Library discovery systems, now about 10 years old, provide access to the library’s virtual content as well as its print collection and uses new search algorithms that have tried to balance precision searching with broader discovery and post-search limiting. In the retail environment, the ability to search and find what is in a particular store is also about 10 years old, and to date, in my opinion, retail search engines are sadly lacking in terms of precision searching.
Libraries have a better understanding of metadata and its importance in both precise searching and in overall discovery. I am always frustrated and amazed when online retail systems, as well as Google, cannot provide a precise search. If I checked Crate and Barrel for “tires”, something Crate and Barrel does not sell, I get 8 hits; two where tires are mentioned ( a children’s fire engine, and trailer) and 6 where the word “tired” has been conflated with tires, where it is not linguistically or conceptually related to “tires”. The retail search system has some “filters” but none specific enough to ensure precision. While library discovery systems suffer from some of the same shortcomings, the metadata, the relevance ranking algorithms are more precise, and discovery systems offer more sophisticated filters to narrow results to something relevant to the users’ needs.
Some retail systems exceed the library search and discovery systems in the amount of detail that a user is provided when they get to an individual item. Where the library might provide a cover image and table of contents, the retail system often shows how the item can be used, how it is to be cared for, how it is related to other items in the store, and what others who looked at this item also looked for. Interestingly the return policy (the equivalent to a library’s circulation policy) for the item is also included: all relevant information in one place. It also tells what other stores in the area have the item. As the library’s users increasingly come to our collections virtually, we might look to retail to see what metadata and enrichment data could be easily be given to our users. Perhaps Linked Open Data will provide an easy mechanism to integrate some desired new features into library search systems.
· Displays/Inventory: I have often heard comments that libraries should arrange their books and services to be more like bookstores, or other retail trades. While libraries with very large collections could not entertain this in a large scale manner, they can certainly benefit from retail’s experience and knowledge of customer behavior and attitudes.
o Browsing collections: Bookstores do a relatively good job of creating collections that are meant to be browsed and not necessarily searched for a particular item. The average bookstore will have sections on literature, romance, science fiction, business, history, art, cookbooks, children’s, etc. These are certainly meant for people who are not necessarily looking for something specific but are arranged to show the breadth of what is available in order to entice a customer to browse through and pick up something that strikes her/his imagination. This works well if customers understand the basic categories, and there is a backup way to find and locate a specific item if that is what the customer wants.
Some libraries do create browsing collections for new titles, or very specialized or small areas. Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal classifications used by libraries provide detailed subject access and not a browsing collection similar to a bookstore. Someone coming to an academic library and asking to “browse” fiction or history will not find this easy to accomplish. Creation of even small browsing collections within an academic library is often made more difficult by the library’s integrated library system that is not set up to enable this level of creativity.
o Dispersed inventory: One of the things that some retailers do (read Crate and Barrel and others) is to disperse the same item or group of items across the store, so that a customer has to wander throughout the store to get a full sense of what is available, and hopefully see some other interesting things on the way. For example at my store, wine glasses live in at least 10 different spots in the store. A customer can never come in and say I want to see your wine glasses and get a full sense of what is available to them and to easily compare them. Libraries, on the other hand, tend to shy away from large-scale displays and a dispersed inventory, so it is easier to get a sense of what is available. The proliferation of e-books and off-site storage facilities makes this more challenging for library users to get a full sense of what a library has in any given subject area. They are having to change their approach from physical browsing to browsing the collection electronically and new systems are being developed and implemented to assist the user.
o High-traffic displays: Retailers excel at this – putting things that they want to be noticed/purchased in high traffic areas where customers cannot help but notice. High-end retailers will do this with more aesthetic appeal, but even mass retailers like Walmart make sure you see the items they are pushing. Libraries, in general, do not do excel in this area. We often have galleries or display cabinets/spaces that are placed on the periphery, and users have to seek them out. While this may allow for a more thorough, well-thought-out, or comprehensive exhibit/display, it may be completely ignored by the audience we are hoping to attract. This is one place libraries can/should learn from retail.
· Marketing/Advertising: Marketing and advertising are key to helping people know about your organization and understand your services and events. While the retail world has been a child of Madison Avenue for decades, only in the past 20 or so years have libraries fully embraced marketing/advertising as a core part of their work they do.
o Social Media: Most companies and many libraries were early adopters of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Most companies dedicated personnel (one to a whole team) to manage their social media presence and to respond to customer questions and complaints. While Libraries have flocked to social media, there are few examples where it is, in my opinion, really successful. Too often libraries don’t have a clear sense which channel is best for a particular audience, or how to best write of position messages to be effective. Most libraries lack the personnel to have a full-time person whose predominant role is marketing and can pay attention to social media in a strategic way. Social media, because of its seemingly “ephemeral” or “of the moment” bent, often strays from fulling its potential as a channel to advance the library’s strategic goals.
o Personalized marketing: The business world has long excelled in “personalized” marketing. The personalization ranges from a “personalized invitation” for a credit card, or discount for an upcoming sale, to a more personalized newsletter that reflects a customer’s interests. With the advent of robust software programs like Constant Contact, or MailChimp, libraries have been able to do customized large-scale email messages as well as well-designed newsletters and advertising. As with social media, this takes dedicated staff in terms of messaging but also graphic design staff to make anything beyond a two or three line email look good.
o Campaigns: Marketing campaigns have long been the purview of the corporate world, and for the most part they have done it quite successfully. Take for example Macy’s “I believe” holiday campaign, now in its eleventh year. Not only has this campaign each year told a story to millions of children and their parents, and resulted in decorations, merchandise, and media with the “I believe” logo and story, but they have also used it effectively to raise millions of dollars every year for education, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and others.
A good marketing campaign tells a story – a message that influences its hearers in a positive way. Academic libraries have seldom mounted a solid marketing campaign that is comprehensive and long-lasting. Marketing campaigns are expensive and libraries are usually strapped for cash. Academic libraries are part of larger colleges and universities and any marketing campaign must fit solidly within the university’s brand/marketing guidelines. Some libraries have managed to create positions and hire marketing librarians or they have gained the help of an on-campus marketing professor and her/his students to assist in marketing.
While there are certainly other areas of intersection that might be explored, these few areas do show that there are significant areas of overlap/similarity between libraries and retail. Because library user behavior and information seeking practices are strongly influenced by consumer practices from online as well as bricks and mortar retail, libraries should pay attention and adapt and adopt retail practices and strategies that advance their mission.
