Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

But there’s a deeper reason the Nook was the wrong way to look. Amazon isn’t successful because of the Kindle. Amazon is successful because of recommendations. At every turn on Amazon.com, someone—usually another customer—is telling every potential Amazon customer why they like this book, what they’d also like, what they’d like better than this book. The endless implicit message: Buy this. Buy more. Buy better.

Yes, it’s crass. It’s occasionally ugly and offensive, and frequently just annoying, inelegant and uncomfortable. But on Amazon’s site, you never get a chance to forget you’re in a online store where you really should be buying books.

That’s a concept that works in-store too—even better, in some ways, than it does online. But as far as I can tell, it’s a concept that has never surfaced in Barnes & Noble’s comfortable, elegant stores. The associates are helpful if you ask, and they may even make polite recommendations. Mostly, though, they stay out of your way as you sit in a comfy chair and page through a book (or your Nook) with no special push to buy.

Compare that with one of the largest independent bookstores in the U.S., Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore. Never mind that the store is a labyrinth that literally requires a map to navigate and “elegant” is a description customers would never likely use. But recommendations are everywhere. Shelves are littered with paper tags containing capsule reviews, staff recommendations, “if you like…” characterizations and snapshot summaries (“Zombies!”). Flyers, newsletters and posters drive home the point: Look at this. We liked this. Here’s why you might like this.

It’s a bookstore that learned the Amazon recommendation lesson before Amazon was even around. And it’s a lesson Barnes & Noble still hasn’t learned. It has nothing to do with a labyrinthine indy style, and everything to do with understanding that recommendation lesson.

In the end—if this does turn out to be the end for the chain—that’s why merged channel/omnichannel failed Barnes & Noble. Merged channel isn’t just about moving customers and merchandise between online and stores. It’s about moving what works between the two. Recommendations work. Book selling works. It works online; it works in stores. It’s easier to automate on an E-Commerce site, because programming is once but staff training is endless. (OK, software maintenance is endless, too.)

But if stores fail to learn from online and vice versa, both channels are weakened. Chains that fail to keep applying lessons they learn in each channel to the other put themselves at risk.

And retailers who don’t really like both channels are all but guaranteed to fail.