How Barnes & Noble Is Winning by Rethinking the Usual Retail Conventions

The Barnes & Noble store location in Oviedo, Florida may be a bit harder to locate than others because it has a different name. As a throwback to a brand the bookseller acquired decades ago, this store location is now the one and only B. Dalton Bookseller location in the world. It’s a symbol of B&N Chief Executive James Daunt’s “idiosyncratic approach to mass retail.”

Over the past several years, the resurgent bookseller has abandoned typical branding guidelines, killed the “racetrack checkout” u...