Today Borders (BGP) opens it first new “concept” store in Waters Place shopping plaza on Lohr Road in Pittsfield Township, Michigan.
What exactly the concept will look like is still a mystery.
“You can expect to see a completely different store compared to existing Borders stores,” said company spokeswoman Anne Roman recently. “Embracing technology – as George (CEO George Jones)talked about in his early days – is clearly evident throughout as we have new digital options as promised.”
Borders’ plans to launch it’s own e-commerce Web site, which is expected to go live by April and the company is terminating its current affiliation with Amazon.com. Borders site is expected to play a crucial role in connecting Borders’ bricks-and-mortar stores to its online presence. As for the “how’s” of the plan, that has not been disclosed yet either. For those interested, Borders has been testing the site and taking customer feedback at beta.bordersstores.com.
After a quick glance at the site, it looks like a cross between Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes site and Amazon’s own. That is not a bad thing. It has a unique navigation feature for scrolling that is very user friendly and personalized list based on user interests.
If any readers go to the new store today, please email or post comments on the experience.
Disclosure (“none” means no position):None but getting close
