01.08.14 | Lisa Campbell - The BooksellerAn exclusive preview look inside the store ahead of its opening to the public revealed a modern, stylish twist on the 217-year-old Hatchards identity, with customers welcomed with a neon sign in the traditional typography headlining two double-doored entrances, framed by brick arches.
The new store will offer customers the option of ordering a book by 3pm and being able to pick the title up by 5pm the same day, with those orders fulfilled by the larger Hatchards Piccadilly store.
As Waterstones’ retail manager for London Luke Taylor told The Bookseller, this secondary Hatchards will play more to international tourists flocking to Europe on the Eurostar as well as “erudite Londoners”. To this end, a range of London travel titles and London-themed gift products greet visitors on the right of the entrance, while newly-released titles flank the left. Spotlights suspended from the roof illuminate titles in the store’s different sections, which unfold to the left and right of the gangway as customers walk deeper into the shop. Original Hatchards tables showcase titles, blending the old with the new. The main cavity of the room contains the wider fiction section, which revolves around Hatchard’s traditional hardback and signed stock offering. For this, the original Hatchards on Piccadilly will act as a feeder for the smaller 2,000 sq ft St Pancras store.
“Signed stock will be in abundance here,” Taylor said. “Customers can expect to find their signed copies by Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan…Hatchards has been historically very old-fashioned and with this shop, we are appealing to classic Hatchards customers but also to a more modern reader base as well.”
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