A good place for a worm like me. Photo: Raul Lieberwirth

I love books. I also love hearing things like this: Robinsons Bookshop in Frankston voted Victoria’s most popular seller. It’s great to see books still doing there thing and keeping alive in this e-dominated world. This bookshop is the closest traditional bookstore to me, so this is fantastic news that touches and warms my heart – what’s even better is it is completely relevant to what Adrian and Brian touched on in the Symposium.

One only has to keep up with the news to see that book stores aren’t doing to well out there. As a matter of fact – the big ones are all shutting down in Australia. Here’s some articles from the ABC, The Sydney Morning Herald and one from the Age about book giants Angus and Robertson and Borders closing up shop and moving conveniently online to bookworld.com.au to make a living. So why are independent bookstores still alive? How are they weathering the storm? Well according to Ms Horman who owns Robinson’s, they’re not shrinking their physical and retail presence; They’re expanding.

We want to grow. We are not following the trend of some bookshops because we feel confident in what we are doing and feel that the public still want books and they want bookshops

Instead of shutting down stores, they’re opening more stores? So what makes this possible. Well, from what I can gather, Robinsons and other independents out there are offering something that online stores such as Amazon can’t: a satisfying customer service experience and an exceptionally personal in-store experience. Buying books from a retail outlet is always going to cost more than Amazon or any online service. That’s where Borders and co. went wrong. Their prices were just as steep as any small book outlet, but their service was rubbish, there was no experience. Why would anyone pay more to put up with horrible waiting times and poor customer service, especially when they can order with ease and security with a few mouse clicks – even less if you’re automatically signed into Amazon.

So that’s what we want. That’s what we have to do in order to satisfy a public and society who’s expectations are on the rise and who can’t get no satisfaction. Let’s follow the example of Robinsons. Exceptional customer service. Personal customer service. Taking care of your customers. Providing a friendly and warm cafe and coffee shop in store. The stores aren’t busy, they’re intimate, you get one on one customer service and all the help you need. It’s warm, cosy, just like home. It’s a place to meet fellow book lovers. These are the kind of examples we should live by. This a great case study into what makes something successful.

We can all learn something from Robinsons. Sometimes doing things the old-fashioned way is better. And I think that with our generation, the world will become more experience based, to make up for all the experiences we’ve missed out on during our childhood.