This 42,000 sq ft store on a single floor, from Indian book and music retailer Landmark, aims to do that which retailers operating in the sector everywhere are seeking to do: arrest the stagnation or decline of business owing to online alternatives.
The solution to the problem, provided by design consultancy Fitch, has been to create an interior that plays on the notion of the book and music store as entertainer as much as retailer.
Given the store’s location in the basement of Mumbai’s Palladium shopping centre, this has been a challenge. There is no store frontage and therefore making the shop a destination relies upon strong branding, navigation and variety. For this reason, the interior is dominated by a racetrack to help shoppers access its deeper reaches.
At the rear, a lower circular drum acts as a focus for the book department, which in its turn provides a draw through the rest of the space. The store has books, music and toys - the latter being electronic for the most part - as its principal zones and an attempt has been made to give each area its own personality, to help increase shopper engagement. Shop-in-shop areas and a reading room have also been created.
What is interesting is the international nature of the problem faced by booksellers and how they are responding. The Landmark solution seems to be to offer a series of semi-discrete experiences as progress is made through the shop. The black, white and grey colour scheme adds a contemporary touch that is different from the normal way of doing things in a bookshop. A further branch is planned for Delhi.
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