Study Provides Crucial Information for Store Expansion

When Brian Sweet was considering an expansion of Trail's End Bookstore in Winthrop, Washington, a few years ago, he turned to the ABACUS Survey of independent bookstores' financial operations for help in making the right decision. "ABACUS has been important in examining where we've come from and where we need to go, especially when we were thinking about expanding the store," Sweet said recently. "With ABACUS, we could determine that we could expand. We saw that, yes, we'd triple our rent, but it would still be within acceptable parameters. If we didn't have ABACUS, we would have been just throwing darts blindly. Since we've expanded, we've doubled sales. And our percentage of rent became even less than anticipated because sales went up more than expected. Without ABACUS, I don't think we would have done it."

To those who have not yet sent in their data to the 2009 ABACUS study, Sweet said, "It takes a half-hour, 40 minutes at most. We've done it every year, and it's necessary for other people to do it too, so we all have real data to compare."

Now, in addition to receiving an invaluable customized report analyzing their business' financial results, booksellers at stores that submit their 2008 financial data to ABACUS by the August 15 deadline are also eligible to apply for the Avin Mark Domnitz Scholarship to the Fifth Annual Winter Institute. Created to honor the former ABA CEO's wide-ranging contributions to independent bookselling, the scholarship is also a tribute to Domnitz's work over the years with the ABACUS Survey, which he will once again oversee this year.

With the August 15 deadline for submissions to the 2009 ABACUS study just two weeks away, it's imperative that ABA member booksellers submit their 2008 financial data via the secure and confidential survey form as soon as possible. Completing the easy-to-use ABACUS Survey form takes about an hour. An Excel spreadsheet allows booksellers to organize the information from their financial statements so that it matches the categories on the ABACUS form. All information provided to the ABACUS study is kept strictly confidential. Domnitz will be the only person who will see any individual store's numbers.

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Read more about what booksellers have to say about ABACUS.