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Independent bookshops and wholesalers Gardners are adopting a real-time data technology to help book-buyers discover which physical copies are located in bookshops near them.
Real-Time Local Inventory (RTLI) from London-based tech company NearSt shows where products are stocked in high street shops in real-time, giving nearby bricks-and-mortar shops a point of advantage in the competition with online retailing.
London indie bookshop Pages of Hackney signed up to the tech last year and plans to roll it out in its new shop. "We've noticed people coming into the shop saying they had googled the book and had been directed to our shop as a result. It's difficult to know how much the financial boost is but you can see the difference," said owner Eleanor Lowenthal. "It's the only time we have branched out on normal advertising. It's worth the investment, just to get the new people in based on Google and them being directed to us. Once they come in once, we hope they will return."
Explaining how RTLI works, NearSt c.e.o. and co-founder Nick Brackenbury, said: "Once an hour we get an update on what they have in stock, and at what price. We then pull other information and pull that into a feed on Google so if a customer is looking on Google, that shop will be top of their search and will tell them that for example, that book is available 2.1miles away at this shop."
Gardners has partnered with NearSt and is using the tech from its Gardlink Stock control & Epos system to "give a boost to the high street book trade." Nigel Wyman, head of business development (UK) at Gardners, said: "The Real-Time Local Inventory data from our Gardlink Stock control & Epos system, enables each of our customers to show their available stock in real time online without any technical know-how. It greatly encourages people who search/shop online to walk into a physical bookshop and take the book off the shelf and put money in the till. As Gardners are a Premium partner with NearSt any bookseller using our Gardlink system that signs up will also get additional benefits."
Bookshops are "leading the charge" in the fightback against online retailers and are using technology to boost footfall, according to Brackenbury. NearSt is integrated with every major POS system in the book industry, including Bertrams, and estimate 15% of all eligible independent bookshops are now using the RTLI data.
"We believe that the high street has a huge amount of value. Currently you can stand outside and go to order a book online and Amazon will tell you it can be delivered tomorrow, but you could be standing right outside a bookshop that has that book in stock. There's all this negativity around the high street and focus on people buying online as if there is no alternative but it's not an either/or situation. It can start online and end in a store and it can be a really powerful thing," he said. "If we can keep their stock visible online then they can focus on making the most of their stores. Five years ago bookshops were taking a battering but bookshops right now are making the most of this and adding event spaces, coffee shops and making themselves amazing destinations. Bookshops are leading the charge and it's really exciting and I think it can be transformative for the high street."
A new near.st/futures">report by NearSt and The Future Laboratory examining how traditional retailers can use tech to compete with online companies found trends based on micro-retail and a focus on community will define the future of the high street with retail space "rethought in more dynamic ways as there becomes a reduced need to carry stock that isn’t in demand". Anecdotal evidence from NearSt's current network of shops indicates that RTLI could drive up to £9 billion of sales back into the UK's 200,000 high street shops, the equivalent of an average Briton making just seven additional high street purchases a year.
Whilst online sales are growing at a fast rate, the ONS says bricks and mortar sales still account for nearly 82% of sales in the UK. A TimeTrade survey found if an item is available both online and in a nearby store, 75% of consumers would prefer to shop instore.
Booksellers Association m.d. Meryl Halls welcomed the report and the use of RTLI. She said: "It’s exciting to see hi tech put to the ends of common sense and community focussed solutions, so we were really interested to read the High Street Futures report and hear what our friends at Near St are planning in the Real Time Local Inventory (RTLI) space. The high street is in desperate need of some creative thinking, and the solution that reaches consumers online and then delivers them an in-store experience has great potential. Near St have been commitment to booksellers right since they started, so they know how the indie bookselling sector works, and they have also built innovative solutions around inventory and online search. Bookselling has been an innovative industry for decades, and it’s good to know that there are tech companies who are identifying the consumer yearning for a real-world experience and building an online solution to that."
The report comes as Amazon revealed plans to open pop-up shops on the UK high street to give online businesses a bricks-and-mortar presence.