M
MEP
Guest
The B&N near where I live now has a pretty large religious book section and 90% of it is Christian (though about 2% of that is Catholic and at least 5% is anti-Catholic, but welcome to America I guess). It’s in the middle of the back of the store, but the place is so cavernous that even the shelves at the front really aren’t exposed any more than anything else (it’s hard to navigate in this store, finding anything is difficul because the aisles for all sections criss-cross in every direction for some odd reason).
I think of it like a grocery store personally. They always put milk and bread in the farthest corner in the back of the store so that people have pass by and walk through every other aisle in the store to get to it. They know people are buying those two things all the time and they want to drive traffic past other products in the hopes of snagging an impulse buyer.
I doubt this is the case in most bookstores, but putting more popular, better selling stock in the back of a retail store is an age-old trick for trying to grab impulse buyers as they pass other items. Seeing how the religious section in my B&N is abnormally large (like 6 or 7 rows of shelves) and it is that large even though there are several Christian bookstores nearby, it is possible that this one particular B&N is actually catering to Christians in their own way.
Anyway, I think another reason why mainstream bookstores don’t push their religious stock is because there are so many Christian only bookstores around. When people are looking for a Christian book, that’s usually the first place they look so Borders and their ilk don’t feel the need to promote product that customers traditionally look elsewhere for anyway. It’s not anti-religious sentiment so much as just market economics.
I think of it like a grocery store personally. They always put milk and bread in the farthest corner in the back of the store so that people have pass by and walk through every other aisle in the store to get to it. They know people are buying those two things all the time and they want to drive traffic past other products in the hopes of snagging an impulse buyer.
I doubt this is the case in most bookstores, but putting more popular, better selling stock in the back of a retail store is an age-old trick for trying to grab impulse buyers as they pass other items. Seeing how the religious section in my B&N is abnormally large (like 6 or 7 rows of shelves) and it is that large even though there are several Christian bookstores nearby, it is possible that this one particular B&N is actually catering to Christians in their own way.
Anyway, I think another reason why mainstream bookstores don’t push their religious stock is because there are so many Christian only bookstores around. When people are looking for a Christian book, that’s usually the first place they look so Borders and their ilk don’t feel the need to promote product that customers traditionally look elsewhere for anyway. It’s not anti-religious sentiment so much as just market economics.
