The attention paid to new book releases on a display table

Abstract

This study regards the attention paid to books presented on a table in a bookstore. In order to study this topic, a distinction was made between occasional and regular buyers of books. It was hypothesized that occasional and regular buyers differ in the attention paid to books on a presentation table. Another variable which has an effect on the attention paid to books presented on a table is whether or not a book buyer had a prior intention to buy a specific book (title, author or genre). For the regular buyers it was hypothesized that whether or not they had a prior intention to buy a specific book, they would still pay attention to books on a table. In the case of occasional buyers it was hypothesized that they would only pay attention to books on a table if they had no idea what book to buy. It turned out that occasional and regular buyers differ in the attention paid to books on a presentation table. Occasional buyers act more intensively around the display table but remember fewer titles correctly than regular buyers. Whether or not a regular or occasional buyer had a prior intention to buy a specific book has a significant effect on the attention paid to books on a display table. But the hypotheses regarding this variable, as stated above, were not confirmed. It turned out that buyers (occasional as well as regular) with a specific intention to buy a book paid more attention to books presented on a table than buyers (occasional as well as regular) without such an intention.