Daily Archives: October 20, 2015

The Working Holiday

When I go on holiday I don’t want to be working, but not everyone is the same. I’ve just read about  an apartment for rent in Wigmore, Scotland that comes with a catch – if you rent the place you have to do a 40 hour week in the book shop downstairs!

The Open Book Residency is an initiative to draw attention to the difficulties faced by booksellers everywhere. The working holiday is open to anyone and costs from £22 per night. Guests are encouraged to keep a blog as part of the deal.

It’s an interesting idea, and perhaps one with wider applications. Might your place of work be suitable for people looking for a working holiday? If so it could be a win-win for all concerned.

Loop eGifts

You know how it is – you want to buy a piece of clothing for someone as a gift but you don’t know their size. So you have two options, take a chance (leading to a high chance of disappointment) or ask and ruin the surprise. The Loop eGift offers a third option by enabling consumers to choose and purchase online, but leave the specifics up to the recipient.

The eGift button can be incorporated into any online system. Once in place customers can choose to e-gift an item at checkout. They are prompted to enter the recipient’s email address with the option to add a personal note. Upon opening the email, the recipient will be directed to the relevant store to choose preferences such as size and colour, and redeem their item, which is then delivered to their desired address.

E-gifting sits part way between gift tokens and physical presents, opening up a huge range of items that would previously have been though of as ‘difficult to give as a gift.’ If you’re a retailer or a gift buyer, there may be something of interest here.

Thinking more widely, maybe other items could be sold in this way. How about concert tickets for example, or sports event tickets?

www.loopcommerce.com

The One Book Shop

We live in a world with almost infinite choice. It sounds great, but if you’re anything like me, too much choice can lead to indecision. And indecision often leads to inertia – doing nothing. I was therefore interested to read about the Morioka Shoten bookstore in Tokyo which stocks just one book at a time. Each book is stocked for a week.

The store is owned by Yoshiyuki Morioka, and  consists of a single room, containing a table, stocked with this week’s publication, a chest of drawers – used as a counter – and a selection of art and objects relating to the book.

I wonder if this single item approach might work in other retail sectors? Even if you don’t buy into the ‘one item only’ idea, surely a very carefully curated selection of products rather than a ‘we sell anything’ approach, would appeal to consumers in many different markets.

Website: www.takram.com