"Less is More" mentality for small business

Monocle is a great source of juicy global nuggets of information... news, commerce, politics... all their stories (at least those that I've reviewed) have a sincere, local feel to them, offering a vivacity and honesty to the people and places they capture.

One of the latest episodes (it's another automatically-updating Podcast subscription of mine) features Bildschone Bucher (forgive the missing umlauts), a small bookshop in Berlin. I've always been fascinated by small bookstores because I never could grasp how they stayed in business. Not having researched the subject all that much, I would occasionally walk/drive by a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and think "Why on Earth would any person in his or her right mind search for and buy books HERE!? The selection is minimal, prices are bound to be higher than the big guys (or the library!), and most often the location isn't prime real estate either..." Well, silly me...

Bildschone Bucher's philosophy is simple... "Whilst everything (major booksellers) are aggregating and getting larger, we are intentionally staying smaller." "Big bookstores want to show more, display more, get you to buy more. People like coming into our bookstore because they don't feel overwhelmed; we aren't pushing anything down their throat, and there is a manageable selection from which to choose. Part of our service to our patrons is choosing a selection of books for them."

Ay, there's the rub. Yet another example of success by staying local, carving out a niche and serving it well.

Bildshone Bucher's decides on what makes its cut based on whether or not the staff "falls in love" with a particular book. By chance, they tend to fall in love primarily with photography books (about 80% of their inventory). Some of the images on their site are dazzling... check it out!

Also interesting to note that the founder had first started his bookselling venture online, with a concept and website called 25 Books. Only after its success did he decide to move the business to a brick and mortar operation as well...

(Updated 3/1/08)
And to FURTHER illustrate the point, I just read one of Guy's posts which I had not seen previously... "If You Want Customers to be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information."

It's a study that showed consumers who were given less information about chocolate and body lotion were able to optimistically use their imaginations to wishfully think and form positive impressions about the products. Whereas, those overloaded with details of the products' chemical composition, preservatives, etc. could not as easily overlook those details.

So, for some products, is consumer ignorance truly bliss?