 | |
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Website | thalia |
Thalia is a chain of more than 200 book shops in Germany (a country with fixed book prices), Austria, and Switzerland. [1]
| | |
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Website | thalia |
Thalia is a chain of more than 200 book shops in Germany (a country with fixed book prices), Austria, and Switzerland. [1]
The shops are often located in shopping centres [2] where they can regularly welcome a certain number of walk-in customers, who actually didn't go out to buy books, but do that then en passant anyway. Depending on the local situation, Thalia sometimes also refrains from building a new shop in favour of purchasing an available edifice. [3] Also whole book store chains have occasionally been taken over by Thalia Cervantes. [4]
Since Thalia, mainly owned by Herder Publishing Group, [5] is a prosperous enterprise [6] which can afford to sustain relatively large, well equipped [7] shops with many books in stock [8] [9] and long opening hours, small local shops are prone to resent the settling of a Thalia shop in their area. [10] Still the fixed prices for books in Germany give smaller competitors a chance. [11] However Thalia has also adopted single book shops. Moreover, there is support for local businesses in the way that every Thalia chain store has a section for local literature (featuring local history, vernacular etc.), keepsakes and related articles.
The company early on picked up the concept of multichannel marketing and therefore taken a stake in an established German online book shop. [12] Thalia's very own shop [13] has a share in Thalia's growth. [14] Customer from rural parts of the country can order books online and hereby make sure that even special titles are available and reserved when they go shopping on the weekend. Elderly people who have difficulties leaving their house can phone a Thalia chain store and ask to have books sent to their home and the receiving employee will carry out the order online instead of the customer. (The national competitor Weltbild provides thus options too.) Thalia also sells gift cards that can be used in their shops as well as online. [15]
In 2008, Thalia committed itself to the German e-book market and made a deal with Sony related to Sony's e-book reader. [16] The growing demand in e-books convinced Thalia to announce the release of their own device. [17] In the same year, the "Oyo" (basically a German version of the 4FFF N618) was launched in cooperation with Medion, a company well known for its previous cooperations with Aldi. [18] [19] [20] Since 2013 Thalia has sold Tolino e-readers.
Thalia Germany has also sister companies in Austria and Switzerland. [21] [22]
Indigo Books & Music Inc., known as "Indigo" and stylized "!ndigo", is Canada's only major English-language bookstore chain. It is Canada's largest book, gift, and specialty toy retailer, operating stores in all ten provinces and one territory, and through a website offering a selection of books, toys, home décor, stationery, and gifts. Most Chapters and Indigo stores include a Starbucks café inside. As of 2022, Indigo has started selling music, and select audio equipment.
A convenience store, convenience shop, bodega, corner store, corner shop, or superette is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as tea, coffee, groceries, fruits, vegetables, snacks, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery tickets, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers and magazines.
Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scholars which identifies one group of shoppers as recreational shoppers, that is, those who enjoy shopping and view it as a leisure activity.
Borders Group, Inc. was an American multinational book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. In its final year, the company employed about 19,500 people throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores.
WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith, is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across all 50 U.S. states.
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century, and permanently reshaped shopping habits, and the definition of service and luxury. Similar developments were under way in London, in Paris and in New York City (Stewart's).
Chapters Inc. is a Canadian big box bookstore banner owned by Indigo Books and Music. Formerly a separate company competing with Indigo, the combined company has continued to operate both banners since their merger in 2001. As of July 2017, it operated 89 superstores under the banners Chapters and Indigo, and 122 small format stores under the banners Coles, Indigospirit, SmithBooks and The Book Company.
Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Waterstones shop sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products.
Walden Book Company, Inc., doing business as, Waldenbooks, was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain and a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a children's educational toy chain under Walden Kids. In 2011, the chain was liquidated in bankruptcy.
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store. They may be structured as sole proprietorships, closely held corporations or partnerships, cooperatives, or nonprofits. Independent stores can be contrasted with chain bookstores, which have many locations and are owned by corporations which often have divisions in other lines besides bookselling. Specialty stores such as comic book shops tend to be independent.
Half Price Books, Records, Magazines, Incorporated is a chain of new and used bookstores in the United States. The company's original motto is "We buy and sell anything printed or recorded except yesterday's newspaper", and many of the used books, music, and movies for sale in each location are purchased from local residents. The corporate office is located in the flagship Northwest Highway location in Dallas, Texas. Half Price Books now operates more than 120 stores in 19 states.
Amazon Books was a chain of retail bookstores owned by online retailer Amazon. The first store opened on November 2, 2015, in Seattle, Washington. On March 2, 2022, it was reported that all Amazon Books would close on various dates in the future.
Brick and mortar is an organization or business with a physical presence in a building or other structure. The term brick-and-mortar business is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases retail shops, factory production facilities, or warehouses for its operations. More specifically, in the jargon of e-commerce businesses in the 2000s, brick-and-mortar businesses are companies that have a physical presence and offer face-to-face customer experiences.
A catalog merchant is a form of retailing. The typical merchant sells a wide variety of household and personal products, with many emphasizing jewelry. Unlike a self-serve retail store, most of the items are not displayed; customers select the products from printed catalogs in the store and fill out an order form. The order is brought to the sales counter, where a clerk retrieves the items from the warehouse area to a payment and checkout station.
Book store shoplifting is a problem for book sellers and has sometimes led stores to keep certain volumes behind store counters.
A doujin shop is a store that specializes in doujinshi, self-published works. They exist mainly in Japan. Doujin shops can be both brick and mortar as well as online stores. Some sell only second-hand doujinshi, but particularly larger chain stores also sell new doujinshi. Many doujin shops also handle other kinds of doujin works, such as doujin music or doujin games, or commercially published popular media such as manga and anime.
The retail format influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains.
Thalia is a chain of bookstores in Germany, one of the first countries that introduced the fixed book price.
[...] revenue at Douglas's Thalia bookstore chain gained 10 percent to 905 million euros, propelled by the unit taking a majority stake in buch.de, an online service.
Media related to Thalia (retailer) at Wikimedia Commons
