Environment
An independent bookshop on the ground floor of an old city-centre building. Tall windows, a deep-set entrance with a wooden frame, and the shop's best sellers stacked on a table right inside the door. The building is protected, which limits what can be drilled, cut or fixed to the fabric.
The problem
Books are easy to carry out and hard to watch: a small shop with one or two staff cannot keep an eye on the door while serving customers. The owner wanted a system that would protect the stock near the entrance without altering the historic doorway or blocking the view from the street.
What we chose
- One metal-frame EAS pedestal positioned inside the entrance, on the shop floor rather than in the doorway itself, so nothing is attached to the historic frame.
- Soft labels inside the books, deactivated at the till. Labels are placed where they do not damage the book or show in the display.
- A compact deactivator on the counter, which is only a few steps from the door.
Installation
The pedestal stands on the floor just inside the entrance, with the cable routed along the base of the wall to the nearest socket. Detection was tested with labelled books through the full width of the doorway. Because the entrance is deep-set, the position of the pedestal was chosen so that customers pass it in a straight line, which gives the most reliable detection.
What the bookshop gets
- The stock by the door is protected without moving it.
- The historic doorway is untouched and the shop looks the same from the street.
- Staff can serve customers without standing guard at the entrance.
Bookshops and museum shops share this profile: small products, open displays and buildings that must not be altered. Our museum people counting page covers the counting side of the same kind of space.