Borders Books Expands Markets

The Bookstore Giant Goes After Children and Teen Sales

Aug 1, 2009 Patricia Faulhaber

Marketers can take a lesson from big retailers, when one market goes stagnant, move onto other target markets.

Perusing book shelves for hours, drinking coffee or tea while looking through magazines, meeting clients or friends in book lined retail stores have become social activities – thanks in large part to the Borders Books chain.

Now Borders is planning to do for children’s and teen’s book sections what they have done for the past few decades for boomers and Gen X and Y.

Borders Books for Kids and Teens

While book sales have slowed with the rest of retail sales, Borders Books is expanding their marketing efforts for children and teens books. According to Publishers Weekly (July 20. 2009), it must be working because during the first quarter, children book sales rose 3.4 percent at Borders.

The chain has taken space that has traditionally been used for multimedia sales in its stores and converted that space to provide an expanded children’s book section. According to Publishers Weekly’s research findings, 30 percent of children’s books are bought from the bookstore chains.

The Wall Street Journal reported on July 21, 2009 that Borders is also planning to expand its teen reading sections. The retailer has sectioned off areas in their stores and made the sections kid and teen friendly and inviting.

To further its teen connection, Borders has opened a page on Facebook called Borders Ink in efforts to become the place teens go to for their reading needs. The new teen sections will carry all of the teen reader’s favorite authors and add on items related to teen literature.

Book Buyers

Publishers Weekly released the latest sales numbers for books in the July 20, 2009 issue. Some of the interesting book sales findings include:

Amazon is now the largest outlet for books.
Men buy more ebooks than women.
Women bought 65 percent of all trade books in 2008.
Matures make up 30 percent of the book buyers.
Boomers make up 35 percent of the market - they also make the largest percentage of the population.
Mystery/detective is the most popular genre accounting for 16 percent of sales.

Reading is Big Business

Reading, like so many other things in the past few years, has become big business. Reportedly, Barnes & Noble is the largest book store chain with Borders Books coming in second.

Barnes & Noble also has a special teen reading section. And, according to The Wall Street Journal report, “The teen category is now so attractive that Harlequin, the romance publisher, recently launched a new Harlequin Teen imprint, aimed at readers aged 12 to 18 years old.”

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Children Book Sales Increase