Concerns Raised About Future of ABACUS

With the July 31 deadline for submitting data to the 2006 ABACUS Survey rapidly approaching, David Walker, ABA's director of special projects, expressed concern about the future of the study, which provides independent booksellers with customized reports on their store's financial performance.

BTW: This is the fourth year for the new ABACUS Study, and bookseller participation has grown for the past several years. Why is the study in jeopardy now?

David Walker (DW): Because the number of booksellers responding this year has dropped. Last year, we received nearly 280 surveys from ABA member stores, and we were hoping for at least 300 this year. As of today, we are not even halfway towards achieving that goal. Of course, there are still a few weeks to go until the deadline, and we're hopeful that the pace of submissions will pick up, but we are starting to become concerned that we may not receive enough surveys to produce a report this year.

BTW: To what do you attribute the low level of response?

DW: We really don't know what to attribute it to. We've made significant changes to the online form to make it easier to use, so participating in this year's survey should take even less time than it has in previous years. We realize, of course, that booksellers are very busy, and it may simply be that many stores are putting off the task until closer to the deadline, but if that is the case, receiving a large number of last minute submissions will create real problems for us.

BTW: Why would that be a problem?

DW: Each store's information is reviewed to make sure that there are no questions about the numbers before they are added to the data pool. And we frequently do have questions that need to be discussed with the bookseller before the data can be processed. ABACUS submissions are seen by only two people at ABA, myself and [ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz], and the process of reviewing them and calling booksellers with questions can be quite time consuming. If we receive a large number of late submissions, it will delay the data processing and analysis that has to take place before we can produce a report.

BTW: You mentioned that you are concerned that there may not be enough surveys to produce a report this year. What did you mean?

DW: In order to produce meaningful averages and comparisons that booksellers can use to make informed decisions, we need a minimum number of stores to participate. As you know, we break the results down by various categories -- such as store size and sales volume -- and we need enough stores in each category to provide a representative sample. We won't know exactly how many responses we need until we start to analyze the data, but I doubt if we have a sufficient number at this stage. But, as I say, we're hopeful that the pace of submissions will start to pick up.

BTW: What should booksellers do if they have questions about participating in the survey?

DW: They should contact me with any questions. I can be reached by e-mail at [email protected], or by telephone at (800) 637-0037, extension 6612.