Monday, Jan 01, 2024

Maybe everybody at the big trade conventions is already talking about this, but we've noticed what for us is a startling trend: people coming in to shop after picking out an item or two from this website or from a post on social media. The one reference I've seen so far (in my pile of unread trade mags) describes this trend as "omni-channel shopping". Surely there's a better word, but anyway.

Prior to 2020, our website was mostly a perpetually outdated catchall for cat pictures and some books we also listed for sale on "third-party sites" like Abebooks and Biblio. The changes on websites like these, the discouraging trend in shipping costs, and other complications aside, as soon as folks started shopping from home, we knew we needed to transform our site into a browseable experience.

Nialle had already foreseen this, having tried unsuccessfully to convince fast-food establishments to allow customers to text a simple order to a dedicated phone line for pickup at the drive-through window. Imagine what that would have been like in 2001 - texting "6" to a local number to get a burger and fries, no waiting. Of course, as soon as SMS really got going, being able to order with your choice of multiple options should have been easy - and yet, companies are only now realizing how much more they can deliver to customers, in more ways that customers appreciate. The great pandemic retail revolution is, unsurprisingly, stalled for want of imagination.

Well, Haunted has never been short on imagination, the ether that pervades our entire house. Once we saw that folks were starting to use our website to find out what we had, we increased our site from about 4,000 fairly unusual books to a 10,000-item behemoth, now including some of our toys and games. Our target is to have 40,000 items on the site. This may take a while, but we work on it every day.

The next question, however, is how to make all these data points on our website reflect our physical space, which is designed specifically around the idea of serendipity - the moment when, turning from the shelf you were checking, you spot something you didn't know you wanted to find. Serendipity is, in fact, the point of going to a used book store. Those who know and love many such places know that walking in with a short list of shopping items seldom works, since no one physical store can stock the 100,000+ currently popular titles at constantly adjusted prices. If, however, you go with the expectation that something will surprise you, you will almost always forget disappointment and discover, instead, delight. 

So far, our best idea has been to post pics of groups of books, as they arrive, to our social media. We still need to find a way to link the books displayed to specific listings on our website. More and more social media platforms are working on tools like this, but where's the app that allows me to tag items in one picture and post it to our ridiculously long list of accounts (which now includes BlueSky and Spoutible as well as the unserious but busier Threads)?

Until the internet discovers an "omni" way of posting content, the easiest way to get the Haunted experience is still to come in - or to call or email and let us do some suggesting based on your tastes and current interests. But expect us to be watching closely the tools that may redefine how many ways you can interact with us. You still won't get that old-book smell delivered over the wifi, but maybe we can invent more ways for you to find those old books. At least, we're excited by the possibilities.