Independent Doesn't Mean Small: Wall Street Journal Profiles Joseph-Beth

Corporate conglomerates and billion-dollar IPOs aren't the only newsmakers on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. On Tuesday, August 24, readers of the Journal were treated to an in-depth portrait of independent bookseller Neil Van Uum. Van Uum is the owner of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, with one store in Lexington, Kentucky; one each in Cleveland and Cincinnati; and the Tennessee-based Davis-Kidd Booksellers, with three stores in the state -- one each in Nashville, Jackson, and Memphis. Van Uum will open a seventh store in Pittsburgh later this year and an eighth in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2005.

As WSJ reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg, noted, Van Uum's successful yet unusual retailing strategy has been to "combat the giants by being even more giant." His stores average 30,000 square feet, 5,000 square feet more than a typical Barnes & Noble, WSJ noted. The Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland operates directly across the street from a Borders. Interestly, the mega-chain was founded by the siblings of Van Uum's ex-wife, Mary Beth Borders, a Joseph-Beth co-founder. Uum's Cleveland store is larger than the neighboring Borders and also offers a far wider array of product.

The Cleveland store, like all of those owned by Joseph-Beth, features a full-service restaurant with menu tie-ins to cookbooks and to accouterment offered for sale. Although, as the article points out, sales growth in the book business is agonizingly slow, profits can also be made in other areas -- food, special events, body and bath products, and gift items. Van Uum explains in the article that his stores try to distinguish themselves from the national chains by emphasizing local roots. "If you publish your grandmother's recipes, we'll stock it," he told WSJ. The Lexington store carries about 1,000 books by Kentucky writers and sells products connected to local attractions such as ties and highball glasses with the logo of a local racetrack and fudge made at Kentucky's Abbey of the Gethsemani.

Van Uum told BTW that the focus on local concerns is just one way that his stores, and many other booksellers, have managed to stay solvent despite the constant onslaught of competitors -- chain bookstores, online booksellers, mass-market price clubs, and other big box stores. He has worked hard to create an ambiance appealing to customers -- for example, the children's department at the Cincinnati Joseph-Beth store includes a climbable Thomas the Tank Engine, toys, and a pottery wheel with two pounds of clay. A "health and well-being" section in some stores is extremely popular. "We sell a lot of soap," Van Uum told WSJ. Special events such as monthly dinner clubs at several stores and themed dinners tied to various books are very popular. Author Dan Burstein (Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code, CDS Books), who has appeared at two Joseph-Beth events, told WSJ, "What they've done is turn these stores into cultural centers."

Van Uum knows that the personal recommendations of his bookselling staff are powerfully influential to customers, as are Book Sense Picks. He has seen great growth in the Book Sense program, since its inception and is pleased at how it has "pulled the independent brand together."

"I am in the people business," Van Uum told BTW. "Trying to keep people interested and supporting our vendors is not easy. We're working harder than ever." --Nomi Schwartz