Retail TouchPoints: Q&A with George Jones CEO, Borders Group, Inc.
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of a current article from the Retail TouchPoints website, presented here for discussion.
After losing market share to both online and offline competitors for a number of years, Borders seems to be turning the page to a more positive chapter. Driving the turnaround is George Jones, the former CEO of the Saks Department Store Group and executive at Target. Mr. Jones recently discussed Borders strategic plans during a presentation at the Leadership In Retail Forum in NYC and afterwards shared further insights with Retail TouchPoints. Here, Mr. Jones discusses Borders' new store concept and how it's embracing the digital revolution.
Retail TouchPoints: Can you elaborate on the new concept stores?
Jones: Without revealing too many details, I can say that the concept store will have many of the features that our customers love about our regular superstores - the warm and inviting atmosphere and a vast array of books, music and movie titles - and it will also have new elements including what we are calling "Destination Businesses." These are categories in our stores that Borders will become known for as the best place to shop anywhere for these categories. It's all part of differentiating our shopping experience.
RTP: Can you talk about some of the interactive aspects?
Jones: For example, we will be featuring a "Digital Center" where customers can download, burn CDs, create photo books, research their ancestry, and much more. We've already begun to introduce certain elements of the digital center concept into other stores and customers are loving it.
RTP: What other digital initiatives do you have?
Jones: As a further extension of our commitment to offer our customers the best in digital, we are in the process of exploring several potential arrangements for key partnerships with respect to our digital offerings. In September of this year we signed an agreement with Sony to offer its new Reader Digital Book in more than 500 of our superstores and sell e-book downloads on a co-branded site that we will share with Sony, and that will ultimately become part of the new Borders.com e-commerce site when it launches in early 2008.
RTP: You are taking a fairly progressive approach to embracing the digital revolution. Can you describe your strategy around this?
Jones: There's no denying that technology is now part of the fabric of life. We also know that people still love to shop and spend time in our bricks-and-mortar stores. By adding the digital experience to our stores, we will make them even more enjoyable and create a more compelling shopping experience. The digital world and the traditional bricks-and-mortar world can successfully co-exist, and in fact, Borders will be bringing the best of both these worlds to our customers to make the total experience even better - a kind of 1+1=3 strategy.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of Borders' strategy of adding a digital experience to their stores? What else could they be doing to prepare for an increasingly digital world?