Borders Gather Six Months Later

When Borders announced that they were partnering with the social networking site Gather.com I was not in favor of the partnership. I think my quote was:

The fact that they chose Gather.com and not Facebook.com indicates to me that Borders is not really serious about social marketing. Combined with a press release that basically says if this doesn’t work we will try something new in 3 months tells me that this relationship will slowly fade out by summer.

Well it is summer, and the Borders-Gathers.com relationship is still going strong. Borders is finding out that social networks can increase sales of books.

Titles talked up on Gather produce sharp increases in sales of those titles on Borders.com as chat room participants link back to the bookseller’s site, Borders CMO Michael Tam says. “Titles that we feature on Gather.com immediately climb in sales,” Tam says in an Internet Retailer article.

“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.”

So yes the relationship is working and Borders is seeing the result in increased sales. From a pure business perspective this was a good deal for both Borders and Gather.com as book sales are up. But think about the sales that Borders is missing out because they did not take a chance and partner with someone like Facebook.

The Gather.com relationship is a solid single to use a baseball analogy. But if Borders has been a little more aggressive this should have been a home run for them and that is why Borders is a distant third behind Amazon and Barnes & Noble.