There’s been a massive decline in physical brick-and-mortar bookstores lately, with booksellers like Amazon on the rise and e-books becoming more popular. In what appears to be a quest to get people in the door and buying books, Barnes & Noble is trying something really different.
At select college campus Barnes & Noble locations, the bookstore is adding makeup, haircare, and skincare products. They’re calling it the Glossary (brilliant bookish wordplay there), and according to Business Wire, it will include “a wide range of products, from prestige brands like Smashbox, Philosophy, Bliss and Lipstick Queen, among others, to traditional mass-market brands including Burt’s Bees, CoverGirl and Maybelline.”
They’re putting the Glossary at college campus locations to fill a need they saw in students in more rural areas, who couldn’t access mega-stores like Sephora and Ulta to try out and buy their cosmetics. Currently, the Glossary is located in bookstores at Emory University, Southern Methodist University, Tulane University, the College of William & Mary, and soon to be at the University of California at Riverside.
Anywhere you can pick up a few John Green books and a new tube of mascara is a win-win in our books.