Best Booksellers 'Understand & Identify' with Customers

Rachel Cass

"In my experience, a store's character is a direct reflection of the wider community that it serves, which in turn influences the kind of people who look to that store for a job.... 
The best booksellers will be ones who really understand and identify with their customers, who read similar books and book reviews, who consume similar culture, and who are genuinely interested in the same topics that their customers are interested in. 
The best thing a bookstore can do to build that community, on both sides of the counter, is to empower its staff to embrace their interests and to share them with one another and their customers. In an increasingly digital world, it's a feeling of community and mutual interest that will keep both customers and booksellers coming back from day to day and year to year."

--Rachel Cass, head buyer at Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., quoted in Liz Gillett's piece for Booksellers New Zealand headlined "Why booksellers do it: the personal side of bookselling"

via Shelf Awareness