Comments on: An Uncertain Future in the Used Book Business

By: George Yin

George Yin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:37:49 +0000

I have the same experience, not only in the summer. I opened our store last Summer and I still have days with no soul comming in. I am in small city and my store location is at a place where there are no other retail businesses. Also my store opening hours are short, from 11:00am to 3:30 pm monday-saturday. I can not open it longer because we have three little kids.
There are some good days. There were only a few days when the sales exceeded $100. But I am still hoping.
I signed a three-year lease. I heard that there is a three year rule that the business will be better after three years.
I decided to quit my job next year to focus on the business and my other interest.

By: Jo Canham

Jo Canham — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:44:47 +0000

A lot of what you said resonated with me – being in a small country town and off the beaten track we have days where not one customer will walk in. Sometimes I sell a magazine for $1 and nothing more. It does get you down. You wonder what you are missing/doing wrong. But then, when a season is good, we have days where we make constant sales. This is my fifth summer ahead of us, and I still can’t identify what will be a good day and what won’t. When the sun comes out and no one comes in, I assume they’re all at the beach. When the rain comes out and no one comes in, I assume they’re all at home. Then sometimes days are busy regardless of sun, rain, cloud, heat, locusts … And having children compounds the difficulties, because we’re juggling so much and time is so precious. My mantra is “When the kids are in school”… The customers’ mantra appears to be “But you’re never open” (it’s not true at all, we’re open 10-2 Tues, Thurs, 1-5 Fri, 12-4 Sat/Sun – just not at the moments they came by.) I have added story telling for kids to bolster the interest here, and am thinking about a Blarney Book group… And would also like to host “author events”. Have you made the decision to shut doors when the lease is up, or are you prepared to continue on?

By: Nora

Nora — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:57:42 +0000

If you have not been logging the exact time of day sales occur, start doing so now. This will allow you to keep better track of what hours are actually worth you being there. If you have two months where nobody comes in after 6 and you’re there ’til 7, just eliminating that hour may be the best choice. Why pay to have the lights on and be away from your family if you make $.98 an hour? Or conversely, when you have a bunch of sales after you’re officially closed for the day.

But if you don’t keep precise records, you won’t actually know when you should move around hours. Do so now and you may be able to adjust your schedule to something that is easier to deal with but brings in the same cash flow.

By: George

George — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:01:55 +0000

The advantage of running your own shop is your ability to keep aware of the pulse of your business. If one customer says positive things you can bet there are many others who appreciate your efforts but are keeping quiet about it. I’m sure there are very few booksellers who didn’t suffer through the early days when only 1-3 customers a day wandered into our shops.

This business, like most businesses, takes a long time to build. Some of the reasons are – only 10% of the population reads and 90% of those readers will not go into a “used” bookstore for many reasons – limited inventory, inconvenient locations, a history burdened by images of dark unkempt premises, operators who would rather read than cultivate customer relations or organize inventory, etc.
Each of these problems are massive and take years to overcome but if you are already being appreciated you have a good chance to do it.

All us outsiders can do at this time is offer support and encouragement. This business is often a rollercoaster and seldom predictable even after 21 years in business – the only thing easily predictable is – if you really work at this business and do manage to survive – your contributions to your community will be massive.

We slammed into a wall early this week when I was forced to do some of the dogwork which sustains this business. I realized our incoming inventory was bursting our display shelves at the seams and we had run out of room to keep our overflow stock organized enough to keep it functional.

So … we will be opening a fifth store in Calgary early in 2010 and finalizing the steps necessary to make our computers competent to instantaneously choose over 50% of our inventory.

But … I remember well the sweetness of the beginnings of this wonderful business … and believe the best is yet to come.

Enjoy.

By: R. M. Ubieta

R. M. Ubieta — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:28:43 +0000

Maybe you have already done this, but try asking your customers what they would like to see at your bookstore. I’m in my 27 year in law enforcment in Florida and will be retiring in the next 2 to 3 years. I have always been interested in books and have started gathering information about openning a bookstore. From what i have gathered so far its no easy endevor!!! Hang in there.