Behind the collection – our trade show ranges
We always look forward to trade shows. It’s a great opportunity to put the books we are passionate about in front of retailers. But with thousands of new titles published every year, how do we whittle down our selection to make sure we’re offering the best books for our customers?
We asked Senior Key Account Manager Gavin to share some insights into how we decide what makes the cut for our trade show ranges.
What do you want people to experience when they visit Bookspeed’s stand at the trade shows?
Trade shows are a great opportunity to connect with our customers and to show them the new books and trends we think will be right for the season. But the trade shows are also a chance to meet new retailers. We want to show them how brilliant books are as a product by showcasing both new and bestselling books. While we cannot bring all the breadth and depth of our ranges to the shows, we aim to offer a succinct, essential, seasonal edit. The shows are also a brilliant chance for customers to see, feel and hold lots of lovely books, and to give us the chance to help them make the right selections for them.
What are you looking for in a book?
A lot of the items we’re offering will eventually be bought as gifts. Books are essentially well designed, interesting, well-priced products that make perfect gifts. Some are beautiful; some are just fun. We are very much looking to represent the broad range of potential gift purchases that will need to be made in the run up to Christmas.
How do you select books for the show ranges?
We aim to show titles with the broadest and deepest appeal to customers, themed across a wide range of gift and lifestyle categories – nature, travel and outdoors, gift, food and drink, wellness, children’s, and more. Starting with sales data across these themes, we identify the key titles which are already selling well. In addition, we also review the new book releases, looking for any emerging trends or themes that we can highlight. We try to select items at a variety of price points. We want to both inspire customers with new ideas and themes and to help them to buy books that will work well as a range together or sit beautifully mixed in with other products within their own displays.
How do you approach the visual merchandising of the stand?
We usually take around 900 products to the show so we can’t expect people to look at every book. Instead, we try to guide them visually. To help customers focus on what is right for them, we clearly theme the stand in different sections, so that they can very quickly work out what each display is showing and whether those titles might work in their retail space.
In advance of the shows, we lay out each of the books for each display to see how they might work together visually. What we try to do is bring together the best combination of books and products across all our themes. Within each of our categories we look to combine new and bestselling titles into little vignettes, small stories if you like, stories that can be woven into customers’ lifestyle themes or product ranges.
Visit us
You will be able to see Bookspeed’s autumn and winter ranges at Top Drawer. Come along and visit our stand for inspiration for the new season.
