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Eason has opened a “virtual bookshop” in Connolly railway station in Dublin which will allow customers to buy an e-book straight onto their smart phones using a QR code.
The Eason Virtual Book Shop is a pop-up store at the station in the form of a rectangular backlit box with Eason branding and tens of book covers printed onto three sides of the unit. The store will stay in place until Christmas.
Each book cover featured on the store has a QR code in it, which, when scanned, will take customers to an online shop where they can purchase the book. A full range of titles in the fiction, children’s, sport and cookery genres are being offered in the mobile store.
David Field, group head of marketing and retail development at Eason, said: “We’re delighted to be bringing the first ever Virtual Book Shop to Ireland. While the traditional physical store is still very much at the heart of Eason, we recognise the ever-growing need to further develop our online shopping experience and to create a concept that is not only innovative and a first to Irish market but that very much demonstrates that we are as contemporary multi-channel retailer.”
Eason has also used Facebook’s Open Graph functionality to allow customers to the Virtual Book Shop the opportunity of sharing their chosen reads on the social networking site.
Speaking at the store launch yesterday (Monday 22nd October), Irish author Cecelia Ahern said: “Seeing my new release One Hundred Names available in Ireland’s first ever Virtual Book Shop – it’s really exciting and I am delighted Eason has invited me to be part of this.”