Dear Ms. Goullon, since the beginning of the year, you have stocked many English-language titles in the Flintbek bookshop. As of today, has this been a good decision?
It was a brilliant decision. We have always had a few foreign language books here and a young customer asked us if we could expand our line-up. This was a few days before Libri offered us their system solution. It didn’t take us long to decide to give it a go.
Where is your bookstore located and who are your customers?
Our bookshop is located in a rural community with about 8000 inhabitants some 7 km south of Kiel. Many families have moved here thanks to newly-built residential areas. This means that our clientele is a mix of ages and backgrounds: young families, pensioners who love to read, reading groups, children and young people. What is special here is that most of the people from Flintbek and the surrounding area are very fond of books and are also very loyal customers.
In your experience, who buys English-language books?
It’s mainly young women, female students and sometimes men.
Using the Just the Best system solution from Libri, your range of books places a focus on young adult-titles. What has your experience been like so far?
Yes, we ordered the “Young Adult” option along with “Just the Best” and it’s really been a hit. The fascinating thing is that more and more young girls are starting to read books in the original language from the age of 13. We are always amazed just how big the demand is. In January we had a post about it on Instagram and have had many new (female) customers since then.
On your website you state that you are part of the KulturPass initiative that gives young people a cultural budget of €200, which they can also spend on books. What role have English-language titles played in orders so far?
Up to now, almost half of the books ordered have been in English.
Just before we finish: What made you choose a system solution in the first place? What benefits do you see? What made you decide to work with Libri?
We kill two birds with one stone with the system solution: we automatically receive the latest books without having to work our way through the sheer mass of new publications, and thanks to Libri we are always up to date. And, of course, the fact that the returns do not count towards our returns allowance makes this second to none. Without the system solution, we would also have English-language titles in our bookshop, just not this wide range. In this respect, as mentioned above, the Libri’s offer came at exactly the right time.
