WOW Effect ...

I am reading a book by Kishor Biyani called "It happened in India !" , it is about the success of Future group who owns Big Bazaar , Pantaloon , Central and many such malls in the country. It is a great book and really a big example of how to turn problems in opportunities.

I always feel Retail is very similar to a functioning of a Library. Think about it. You have to walk in to a retail shop to make a purchase , same is the case with a library. Retail has stacks of items , here we have stacks of books. Retail has barcodes , so do we. Retail has a check out counters and so does the libraries. And security is a major concern for them and same here in the Library. Only difference is in a Retail shop you buy something and in a library you rent it for sometime so there is Return section.

Now Retail has turned into a big science over the year , probably because of the money involved in it and I am sure Libraries can learn a lot from their experience and follow some of the best industry practices.

These days everyone loves to talk about , how the number of visitors to the libraries has reduced and how people prefer to try other ways of sourcing information rather than coming to the libraries and so on and so forth ..... I think it is necessary for us to pick one amazing concept from retail which is called "WOW Effect".

I had been to Mall this Sunday - there was so much traffic on the road and besides it was raining on the way and it was really torture going to a mall on a Sunday morning but that is what the marriages are for ....

But when I walked in - there was pleasant air conditioning - not too cold to freeze me in Monsoon. And then was the perfumes section at the entrance with some amazing fragrance. Beautiful girls all decked up in the cosmetic section .... "WOW" ----- do you know something this WOW is created artificially because of some great research over the years. Because in retail you make your first purchase after settling in time of 7 minutes and till then you need a place which relaxes you and gets you in the mood to buy. That is why the perfumes and cosmetic section is always near the entrance !

Now think of a our Libraries - forget about the WOW , I have seen many libraries who scare you so much as you enter. Rather than talking about what they can enjoy in the library all they talk about is "What you can not do in the library" "Fines for every small wrong thing" ....

I think let us think of the WOW effect that we can give to our users (our internal customers) in the Library and then I do not think we will ever have to worry about less footfalls to the library ...