I visited the much-heralded Borders Concept Store on Monday, and I wasn't terribly impressed. Overall the feeling was of something cheap; more like a Media Play than a regular book store. A lot of half-height shelves but no clear organization or clear walking paths.
The highly-touted graphic novel island was just a set of half-height shelves near the science fiction & fantasy section. There's a funky display hanging overhead that isn't labeled antyhing (unlike the Cooking island) but does have giant cubes with manga characters (and Spider-Man). It was clearly dominated by manga, with the amime dvds shelved adjacent. It wasn't any larger than the manga & graphic novels section at Borders #1 in downtown Ann Arbor, which is much more impressive as a gigantimus tower of manga & GNs that lies at the entrance to the youth & genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mysteries) sections.
No doubt I'll return to the new Borders store, as it is much more conveniently located than the other two Ann Arbor locations. But I wouldn't exactly call it a huge success from a promotional or marketing perspective. Still, it's good that Borders has a store with which they plan on experimenting; maybe they'll hit the right formula one of these days...
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