Best Practices

A consignment arrangement with small presses has enabled Farley’s Bookshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, to build a deeper inventory selection that has grown customer interest and the store’s bottom line.

To counter the increasing number of customers who come to events after purchasing the featured book elsewhere, some booksellers are creating alternative ways to ensure a profit.

Naomi McEneely, the events coordinator at Lake Forest Book Store, explains why the bookstore’s partnership with area libraries has been beneficial on every level.

Dealing with customers who are obviously browsing the store to buy elsewhere can be tricky. To steer them toward the cash wrap instead of the door, booksellers are engaging customers in conversations and using videos, signage, and fliers with QR codes.

Here’s an action kit of marketing ideas and strategies that can help spread the word that indie bookstores are alive, well, and very much open for business, both in-store and online.

Noted retail expert Bob Phibbs talks about The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business, what not to do during an economic downturn, and his upcoming keynote address at ABA’s Winter Institute.

Selecting titles, buying, pricing, and shelving used books is admittedly a labor-intensive process, but five booksellers who spoke to BTW agreed they’re a valuable part of their business.

Six indie booksellers offer insights on how a café can benefit the entire bookstore, its effect on the bottom line, and whether – after tallying all the added responsibilities and costs – they still think adding a café was a good idea.

If you play music in your bookstore, you need to understand what your legal responsibilities – and rights – are. Here's an up-to-date look at the major performing rights organizations, what they do, and the factors that dictate their licensing fees.

To those bookstore owners who do not fully comprehend the extent of their liability under the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, be warned that what you don't know can hurt you – and can be very costly.

Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with the New Rules Project and author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, looks at grassroots financing of local businesses, including Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore, Oakland's  Awaken Café, and Hardwick, Vermont's Claire's Restaurant.

When Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books tried to buy gift cards via the websites of several major indie bookstores in another city, he was very surprised by what he found.

No bookseller has to be reminded that a successful bookstore's profit margin is, more often than not, slim, and -- in the current economic climate -- possibly non-existent. It's for that very reason, said Michael Barnard of Rakestraw Books in Danville, California, that booksellers must be pro-active in how they handle credit cards and card transactions, to minimize the associated costs and risks. Barnard recently led a session on credit at the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show.

With autumn comes flu season, but this year's outbreak of swine flu, or 2009 H1N1, adds new urgency to preparations for combating spread of the diseases. To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2009 H1N1 influenza virus "continues to be the dominant influenza virus in circulation in the world."

Although "growth market" may not apply to much these days, one area of burgeoning sales for some indie booksellers is self-published titles. According to Bowker, from 2007 to 2008 there was a 132-percent jump in the number of new books published by print-on-demand companies.