Celebrating the Holidays

[paperbackbandit]

I am a merchandiser in a mid-size, semi-independent bookstore in Cleveland, OH.  We are located in a Jewish community and thus celebrate Hanukkah with two displays as compared to our four Christmas tables.  I built a Hanukkah sale table on Monday night and found that we had actually sold down almost 2/3 of our merch (which included kosher chocolates, menorahs, dreidel bubble bath, and gift bags).  I received many compliments on our selection of merchandise - I've only been at the store for 4 months (worked in bookstores for almost 5 years, tho) and heard it was the best it's been in about 2 years.

Yesterday, however, I had an African-American couple ask to see our Kwanzaa merch.  We have three children's books that are on the corner of our HUGE children's Christmas table.  They were very disappointed and made a suggestion that we "celebrate and decorate for each winter holiday." 

I was wondering how the rest of you celebrate/merchandise in your stores.  Do you go so far as to recognize Kwanzaa, Ramadan, and Solstice, or do you stick to Christmas?  Just wondering for when it comes to ordering merch for next year.

[prying1]

I can see it would be a problem ordering for each holiday because you could be stuck with the stock from year to year waiting for someone to come in, look at your stuff, complain and walk out.

Space and dead inventory would preclude your ordering for every 'special day' and a simple explanation of this fact might suffice for most 'normal' people.

Politely ask the customers if there is something in particular they would like you to special order for them. Collect at least 50% up front.

The 3-4 times a year this happens will not make a big dent in the word of mouth business you already have going. 

Ricky Nelson said it best (but I think he borrowed the line) "You can't please everybody..."

~

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

This may sound harsh but I find that my shop is a reflection of me. The ambiance, the stock, the music - it's all stuff that I either enjoy or just want to be around. I don;t go in for holidays much, no special displays for easter/halloween etc. Since I was a kid though, Christmas has always been if not important then at least kind of cool. So I have a Christmas table full of holiday books. Only Christmas. It has nothing to do with being narrow minded, I may be one of only a handful of North American booksellers that actually celebrates Norooz with my wife and her family.

Instead of trying to please everybody I just keep plodding along doing the things I like. After three years not one person has asked about other holidays.

[rainydaypaperback]

I have such a tiny amount of floor space I really don't have much space to display holiday themed anything.

I also refuse to put up Christmas lights til the day after Thanksgiving.  I shall not have a snowflake, snowman, santa, sleigh, or reindeer in the window until we've at least finished Thanksgiving!

That said, my holiday cheer basically consists of giving stuff to Toys for Tots.  I take books in for credit, books go out for half cash/half credit.  So I have some customers with MASSIVE credits.  I pulled out all the kids books we had in Fine condition and stuck them on a shelf saying "you may use full credit to purchase this books just for Toys for Tots."

I had several people e-mail saying they couldn't make it in time, please pick some books off shelf and spend $X amount towards Toys for Tots.  So I pulled books for that amount and sent them back a what I'd pulled.

I ran out of books today. Promotion was so popular, I ran out of books for it!

it wiped several hundred dollars of outstanding credits off the books, made customers happy, and made lots of kids Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and solstice happy. Everybody's wins.

[Kathy Roy]

I love the Toys for Tots idea.
Kathy