Frandor Barnes & Noble opens with local focus

Once upon a time, every Barnes & Noble location ordered essentially the same books.

That’s no longer so.

As part of a strategy shift that began in 2018 and has seen the store turn what had been declining sales into an expected 60 new locations this year, the bookstore chain caters to its local audiences.

That means the Frandor Barnes & Noble that opened last Wednesday (Nov. 12) has a more local focus than first-time customers might expect. A table featuring Amy Piper’s “100 Things to Do in Lansing Before You Die” sits near the B&N Cafe, and Rod Sadler’s book “Killing Women,” about East Lansing serial killer Don Miller, has a prominent place in the mystery/thriller section.

Like other B&N locations, the store sells a vast array of books alongside CDs, records, board games and literary-themed knick-knacks. There’s also a cafe serving Starbucks-branded coffee.

Store manager Jason Clark, who previously worked at the Lansing Mall store as well as the former East Lansing store that closed around a decade ago, said Lansing readers reliably go for fantasy/sci-fi and mystery/thriller.

He expects Frandor customers will prefer literary fiction more than Lansing Mall customers. History has also been a popular subject so far.

The Frandor store also features a distinct layout that has become the norm for new B&N locations, Clark said.

“Instead of having straight aisles like you see in the older stores, there are rooms that are created, so you can browse a little more freely in the store,” he said.

The mystery/thriller section, Clark’s favorite, has its own little “room” made out of four bookshelves, with a table and two chairs in the middle. The store is still organized by sections — on the other side of those bookshelves are the horror and true crime sections, all of which are in the fiction section — but this layout creates “a more natural flow,” he said.

Half of the new store’s staff was brought over from the Lansing Mall location, so employees are already familiar with Lansing-area readers.

The location itself was chosen for its centrality, Clark said.

“Frandor is in the central part of the Lansing area, so you get all the different aspects of Lansing because we’re right in the middle,” he said. “It draws people in from all the different surrounding communities.”

He added that ample parking, a struggle for the former East Lansing location, also made Frandor an ideal choice.

The local focus also filters into the events. Scheduled author visits include Stephen Mack Jones, a Lansing native and author of the Detroit-based August Snow mystery series; Eric Thomas, Lansing resident and author of the self-help book “You Owe You”; and Sadler, who has chronicled multiple Michigan-based serial killers.

“When I was doing research and trying to find the right authors to bring in, I wanted ones who are from Lansing or who write about the area,” Clark said. “It was important to me to have that connection with our customers.”