Report from the trenches: Recon at Barnes and Noble
Posted on 30 October 2009, at 11:00 pm, by Carly Z
It took stealth, cunning, and nerves of steel (along with a cell phone camera and a friendly clerk), but here is my report from tonight’s visit to Barnes and Noble to scope out their nook displays.
Even before you enter the store, you are greeted with HUGE mock nook in the window. I kind of want one that size!
Inside the store the Customer Services desk is covered in nook advertising. Two backlit signs are set up in front of the desk, and there is a large banner above the desk. There are also nook shaped pamphlets available that give you a quick synopsis of the features. And if you prefer the self-service search kiosks to real people, those bombard you with nook glamor shots as their screensavers.
According to the incredibly helpful employee at the desk (unfortunately I did not get her name!), the whole store is very excited and several employees have already pre-ordered theirs! She said the plan is to put the nook directly in the front of store when it comes out, with working displays to demo all the features. No word on what accessories will be in-store versus online-only, but apparently the employees are hoping for a good selection of covers and cases. While she did not have much new information, it was great to hear that everyone is so enthusiastic and well-informed!
I tried to take a comparison shot of my Kindle 1 to the nook booklet, but it really did not coming out well: if you can’t tell from the above shot, the K1 was wider, but the nook appears to be longer. From what I can tell of the pictures depicting the profile view, the nook will also be significantly thinner, around the thickness of my iPhone (again, I’m basing this off the marketing material, so I could be off a bit from the actual product).
Nooks will be appearing in Barnes and Noble stores in mid-November (supposedly) so I will do another reconnaissance mission then!
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October 31st, 2009 at 12:32 am
I definitely want one of those as large as that fake one. Reminds me of the mock ups Apple uses in their store fronts.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 am
I’ll be interested to see what impact the ability to test the Nook in person (versus the online only status of the Kindle e-Book reader) will have on sales.
In my local store they have a similar setup and booklets at the checkout counter.
My local store also had gone “free AT&T Wi-Fi” about a month or two before the Nook announcement.