Our latest Future Of Retail Report looks at the trend of Bespoke At Scale. One manifestation of this theme is seen in The Harvard Book Store. Located in the city of Cambridge, MA, the bookstore offers its customers the chance to quickly and easily print out copies of books on its sales floor. Its Espresso Book Machine, playfully named ‘Paige M. Gutenborg’, is a compact digital press that can print nearly five million titles, including Google Books in the public domain, as well as many out of print titles.

Customers utilizing the service to print their own books can upload their publication onto Google Books and have the book printed in the store on the same day. The machine is reported to print books in approximately four minutes.

The Harvard Book Store

A summary of PSFK’s Future of Retail report is available to view for free - and a download of the full 100 page document can be ordered today.