Retailing and social networking: a winning combination

Borders found that its book sales for Harry Potter sharply increased when it invited customers to comment about the book in Gather.com, a social networking chat room. Around 1,000 customers visited the site to leave their comments which led to an increase in books sales. According to Michael Tam, Borders CMO, any titles that are discussed at Gather.com have a positive effect on book sales. Borders has been mailing out a "short list" of books, movies and music titles to registered members of its Borders Rewards loyalty program every week, asking questions like "Who is the biggest Harry Potter fan?" to create interest.

“Social networking and e-mail is helping to get people involved with their passions for reading and watching movies,” Tam says. “Our whole mission is to be the headquarters for knowledge, and by getting people engaged in books and movies they come back to Borders to find out more about them.”