In speaking with some bookseller friends recently it seems many of us have experienced less customers in our stores. At House of James this is certainly the case. Over the last year most months have seen less transactions at the till than the year before. One month we had 1200 less? What is going on? Are people buying less books? Buying them elsewhere? Have many of our customers forgotten about us? How do we win them back?
Now thankfully, our new coffeehouse is booming and customer count has increased dramatically there. How can I get those customers to wander over and buy books? Other booksellers, how is it going for you? Others of you who don’t have bookstores, how can we get you to come and visit us more often?
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The kids and I were lured in the other day by a free gelato coupon we received by email. We also picked up some more audio stories for the road trip we just finished.
I do feel lost in the book sections though (especially since everything is all moved around), since the years of having young kids have gotten me out of the regular reading routine. Sometimes I would like to find a fiction book to get into (to start exercising my reading muscles again) but feel daunted because there are so many poorly written ones, and I don’t want to waste my time and money. Perhaps you could print a reading list, but not just to sell the latest craze — for me to take it seriously I would have to see only solid reads listed.
Josh just finished preschool at MEI this past year — did you know that they have a reading program throughout the year? An incentive to fill in a quarterly / seasonal reading chart was added — a coupon for a free cookie and a juice at a coffeeshop in the mall. I frequent that little coffeeshop now, but have often thought it would be more appropriate to have the reward be at your bookstore. I wonder if you would be able to offer to supply those coupons and get those MEI moms into your store. Perhaps you could include with the coupon some really good recommendations that would appeal to my demographic. Perhaps even a recommendation or two from one of the preschool moms (or better yet, a blog or a local facebook group dedicated to plugging only the most meaningful, worthwhile books). For me, a recommendation from someone you know and relate to holds a lot of weight. Pauline Stobbe (604-859-3700) is the administrator of the MEI preschool.
BTW Your gelato is addictive, and you guys still have the best mochas in town.
By: Denise on August 29, 2009
at 10:53 pm
Thanks for these wonderful ideas and encouraging comments- I really appreciate the time you took to send them and I will take them to heart.
By: landoklassen on September 1, 2009
at 6:11 pm
Hey, Lando-
We have the same issues here in Smithers, and would love to see more people reading. I think Denise hit the nail on the head, though, about how to know that what you’re buying is a good solid read.
Because we are often hand-selling, I think staff needs more time to read, in order to recommend a good book! Free books are one thing-time to read is another! Very often people will accept my recommendations, but even that isn’t always enough. Firstly, I don’t read a lot of fiction, & fiction seems to be what most (women) want. occasionally I can talk someone into a good biography, but not often. Last week I gave a strong, excited recommendation to a Mom on a kids’ author (Chuck Black), since I’ve read the second series & #1 of the first & think they are awesome – but she couldn’t believe me that a book about knights wouldn’t have magic & stuff. So what can you say? I rarely read kids’ books because they rarely draw me in, but my 11 year-old granddaughter wanted to read them & I wanted to check them out – I could hardly put them down!
Secondly, a store can’t carry everything – well not one our size – so we make some decisions. Some customer has heard of some book which WE opted to ignore, knowing something about the author or publisher or topic that spelled mediocre, but it’s awkward to defend that decision to the person who thinks it’s a must-have & we’re duh for not having it. Those folks seldom want to special-order it, & won’t believe you know anything.
The coupon & reading incentive sounds good, but sometimes it’s not that we lack for ideas, rather the margins are just not there to buy the time/staffing a small store needs to execute these ideas. It’s embarrassing to not do it well!
We’re about to have our first-ever store-wide sale, so you know what our summer was like, sales-wise. Weather-wise, it was the most beautiful summer we’ve had in the 22 years we’ve lived here! So naturally, people do different things, like go to the beach!!
Also, we see more & more families lacking discernment in the GI/GO department – both for themselves and their children. Pastors could help here, by getting readers in their churches to do book reviews in the bulletin, or talk/write about how some book impacted their lives, or just plain teaching on holiness.
(Sadly, one reason that we still survive is because of the Terrace store closing, which almost doubles our commercial draw area, but making the best of that also requires more staffing! The area is almost a 400km radius, so actual in-store shopping isn’t impacted much. )
Of course, the bottom line with kid’s books is that there is a dearth of good ones if a child is an avid reader – although I see that improving – & they are mostly still thin & expensive. I read the first Redwall book since one of my other grandchildren was reading them & I was concerned – & found it excellent & wondered why we couldn’t have done that! I had no time to read the rest, so I don’t know if they degenerated into content not appropriate for our market, but surely there are some good Christian writers out there! ?
Well, you got me thinking, Lando & I intend to start with a question to my reading friends: Are there any books you have read more than once? For me that would be some CS Lewis (Mere Christianity, The Space Trilogy, ‘Til we Have Faces); Sign of the Manipogo (remember that one?); Athol Dickson’s Whom Shall I Fear?;Peretti’s first 3 novels;Faire Sunshine (non-fiction;Can Man Live Without God? R. Zacharias; some Francis Schaeffer, some Tozer. I’d extend that to books I want to re-read. I’ve been going to do a section of my favourites So maybe staff all-time favourites would be better. Of course, availability is another issue!
We have a basic info website but again, staffing is such a challenge. Our daughter has done most of it, but is now expecting (PTL!)- after a gap of 11 years!(www.herosbooks.com) So life keeps changing!
Well, bless you, Lando. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I rarely have time, though I’d love to be more interactive w/in the industry.
Not without a cause,
Elaine Taylor
Hero’s Lighthouse
Smithers
By: Elaine on October 12, 2009
at 9:43 pm
How about music listening stations placed throughout the store and coffee house? With the music section upstairs customers actually have to go looking for albums. They need to stumble across great music while wandering around the books and cards and play mobile etc. Seize the impulse buy!
-Schulz-
By: Schulz on October 13, 2009
at 3:15 am