Madewell, Filson partner with local book stores on shop-in-shops

Tucked away in the back corner of Madewell’s flagship location on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, there’s a wall of striking coffee-table books that could be mistaken at first blush for an interior design prop. But look closer and you’ll see a message stenciled on the wall above the shelves: “Curated by McNally Jackson.”

That’s because Madewell created the display in partnership with the local bookshop chain, and customers can scan a QR code to buy the books online.

“What Madewell was asking us to do was co-curate a selection of beautiful art books so they could have them in their store,” Kat Pongrace, director of outreach at McNally Jackson, told Retail Brew. “It was really mutually beneficial.”

Madewell, she added, gave McNally a general sense of what kinds of books it was looking for, and then the bookseller put together a list of 100 titles that “felt a little newer, very aesthetically pleasing” with “multiple points of access for many different kinds of audiences.” Fifty of these titles are now featured in the display.

While shop-in-shops are becoming more popular—particularly in big box retailers such as Kohl’s, which is leveraging them to lure in new customers—the pop-up bookstore has yet to go mainstream. But along Broadway in midtown Manhattan, at least two higher-end retailers have tried it out. The other, Filson, sells premium outdoor clothing just a few blocks away.

Over the holidays, the rustic-looking store partnered with iconic New York City book seller The Strand, located nearby, to set up a nature and outdoor-themed book table.

Kevin Boyer, assistant manager and events specialist at the retailer’s East Coast flagship store, said the idea was inspired by Filson’s Seattle branch entering into a similar partnership with local bookseller Elliott Bay in celebration of the book retailer’s 50th anniversary.

That process produced a list of about 45 “Filson-y titles,” as Boyer called them, which were then supplemented with some East Coast-specific books. A prototypical example is composer John Cage’s coffee table book on wild mushrooms called A Mycological Foray.

Unlike Madewell’s display, which channels shoppers to McNally’s online store, Filson actually kept inventory on-hand and sold roughly $44,000 in books over the December holidays. However, all sales were made through The Strand’s own POS system, and Filson did not take a percentage. 

So the real appeal of the partnership was to expand the appeal of the brand to a new audience.

“If someone goes to The Strand, they’re not necessarily going to walk through Union Square and come into the [Filson] shop,” he said. “So it helps drive foot traffic.”

He also said that it helps to give customers more options, so that they might come in for one thing but leave with a “whole package.” “It adds some color and flavor to our shop,” he said.