Future of Foyles: Shelving the Bookstore?

Submitted by Rushda Khan on Tue, 03/05/2013 - The Bookseller

I recently had the pleasure of attending Foyles’ ‘bookshop of the future’ workshop. The iconic Charing Cross bookstore is about to relocate and, in so doing, create a new bookstore designed for success in the modern book-selling landscape. The workshop served to gather insight from a cross-section of the industry, to help them achieve this ambitious goal in what they hoped would be potentially disruptive ways.

Even though my own career in publishing has focused on digital media, my natural affinity for physical books and stores has remained. So much so that, on the day of the workshop, I found myself not an ambassador for Foyles’ digital frontiers, but a reactionary for digital restraint. In the no-holds-barred atmosphere that ensued, the integrity of the physical bookstore was at stake.

Of course, the traditional bookstore as we know it is certainly failing. More readers are flocking to Amazon for lower pricing, larger range, and arguably a better search experience. I admit that I haven’t bought a book from a physical bookshop in years. (Although, irreverently, I have used my phone to buy books from the Big A at least once while on bookshop premises.) If we assume that Foyles cannot compete on pricing and range, the situation is looking pretty dismal for people like me.

This is why I was not surprised that many opinions in the workshop centred around making Foyles a cultural destination: a groovy ‘place to be’, full of events, courses and cafés. After all, these are things you can’t get on Amazon. But as fun as all this would be, to me it suggests giving up altogether. It says a bookstore that’s simply a bookstore can’t work anymore.

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