Sounds like the kind of place I’d enjoy browsing in. Books and pipes and tobaccos … sounds good to me. (Any Stanwell, Lorenzetti, Jensen, or Brandt pipes?)
You’re in Montana? Heck, I’m just north, in Alberta. If you’re only down in Montana, maybe I should visit sometime.
We have a lot of folks from Alberta coming through town. You’re almost a local.
We do have Stanwells, but none of the other brands you mentioned. Although I can get darned near anything.
Stanwell crafts a fine pipe. If you have Stanwells, I’m sure I’d find something I’d like.
Next question: Tobaccos by Samuel Gawith (sometimes called “the Lakeland Blends”). They’re becoming less available here; would you have any Gawith tobaccos? Or Petersons; their aromatics are wonderful, and University Flake is something special.
Oh yeah, books. 
How’s your history section? Studying American history, especially 19th century history, is a hobby. Our local bookstore is woefully lacking in American history books; I would hope you would have a better selection.
Obviously, I’m thinking road trip…
I second the idea of lap desks.
Something else I often buy are book covers. You know, ornamental or plain cloth, wrap around covers? Supposedly they’re to protect your book, but I mainly use them to avoid having to discuss what I’m reading with any nearby nosyparker.
Okay, maybe that’s antisocial of me, but if I’m on a bus for a ten minute ride, I’d much prefer to get in ten minutes of reading my book instead of having to answer the whole “What are you reading? What’s it about? Is it any good?” standard questions. 
Oh, and I know you said pens didn’t sell, but how about some out of the ordinary bottled inks? As in, something more interesting than Blue/Blue-Black/Black. Put them near your fancy journals, a lot of the people who are into journaling are also into fountain pens.
In addition to Stanwell, I carry some Peterson, Savinelli, Brebbia, Bjarne, Ardor, and assorted house pipes.
I do. I carry both the Samuel Gawith and the Gawith & Hogarth. My favorite of those is the 1792 flake, which I unfortunately can’t get in tins until this fall. sigh I’m hoping to get my quantities high enough to start buying bulk instead of tins soon. Lately, I’ve been smoking the G&H Best Brown Flake. Good stuff.
Come on down! My history section is strongly focused on the American West (especially Montana), with a smattering of general American history, military history, and presidential bios. As an example, I only have a handful of WWII books, but I have a whole shelf of Custer (the site of the “last stand” is nearby) and two shelves of Lewis & Clark.
I tried selling book covers 5 or 6 years ago and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why.
That’s a pet peeve of mine. If I slip out for lunch and park at a table in the back, I want to eat and read, not have a lengthy discussion with the waitress about my book. If I want to talk, I’ll sit at the bar or counter.
That’s a cool idea. I’ll look into that.
I can tell you what I miss about our local independent bookstore… but keep in mind that they went out of business a year ago.
They went out of their way to carry books that you don’t find at Borders or Barnes & Noble. They’d have editions of the obscure works of classic authors, books that used to be famous but aren’t currently best-sellers, things like that.
It was awesome and it was the only (new book) bookstore I’d go to just for browsing fun. Unfortunately, their business model turned out to be flawed. People don’t buy many obscure books.
Bookclub support.
This could happen a number of ways - a room people could sign up to use would be great - our bookclub always has issues finding a host. Bookclub recommendations and a book ordering service. Discounts on 5+ copies of the same book, that sort of thing.
We have a used bookstore here that does a “Cowboy Reading” night. I don’t know how well it goes over, but the one night we walked past, there were 20 or so people there. The guy had a guitar, so he may have just been playing that night.
But still, 20 people in a used bookstore at the same time, kind of cool.
Ok, most of the ideas I had have pretty much already been mentioned. On the coffee/tea mugs, though, you could do little sets, a mug with tea and candies in it as a gift option, even put in a gift card if you have them.
This isn’t a product idea, but have you thought about hosting poetry readings, book clubs, or other reader friendly events like that? Assuming you have the space, that could be a great way to bring in more customers.
If you want to try this, the post office gives out priority mail, flat rate boxes for free. All you’d have to do is keep some behind the register, add the fee to the sale, have the customer write the address on the box, seal it, slap on the postage and put it in your outgoing mail.
You also might want to stock some Kindle/Nook accessories - car chargers (tourists), screen cleaners, screen covers and cases. In addition to reading glasses you could stock eyeglass cleaning kits and eyeglass repair kits. Tote bags with your logo and/or other literary themes would be good. I second the idea of bookends - in addition to wall/floor display, you could display them in use on your bookshelves, which would also add another level of uniqueness to your shop.
What I like in a bookstore is a place to put down the items I’m carrying so that I can look at another book. Sometimes I have a hard time finding the book I laid on the shelf “for a minute”. But it doesn’t sound like your bookstore is big enough to put little tables in the aisles.
If you don’t have space to put in more plush seating, you might want to look into the little cushioned benches like you see in shoe stores. You could place those as endcaps on some of your aisles. It would be neat to upholster those with different literary quotes appropriate to the genre they’re close to in the store.
Also, make sure you take advantage of being able to sell used books online - maybe using alibris.com.
This suggestion may be no help, but those programs always irritate me if I’m supposed to carry a special card or special play money for the store. Life is complex enough without having different payment means for each store. I avoid stores that offer these things in favor of stores that just use money without cross subsidizing the other shoppers who are playing along.
It always makes me wonder why the store couldn’t keep track of me, instead of me tracking the store. If you pulled a report at the end of the year that looked at names on debit card receipts, and saw I shopped there often and invited me to your party or offered me a free book, I’d be thrilled - and my currency or Visa would still be sufficient to shop there!
This is a fascinating thread for me as I also run a bookstore.
I’ve only recently been looking at a number of ways to improve business in the slack period of the year, which for us is most of the year!
In contrast to the OP’s experience I’ve found jigsaws to be a huge seller, both for children and adults alike. Arts and crafts stuff sells like hotcakes too.
You haven’t said much about your children’s section.
I have no kids, but I’m the “book auntie” to a bunch of them. I look for books that aren’t the throwaway-type found in most big box stores. I also usually buy a tie in item to go with it. Newberry and Caldecott award winners are at the top of the list, but stuff like the DK books, the I Spy books and how-to books (science and art are two biggies).
Brain Quest sets, paper doll sets (I have one niece who likes the American Girl series) and the Dover mini-books (inexpensive for kids to buy with an allowance) get my business as well. You mentioned that the local toy store has gone out of business, perhaps you can fill a bit of the niche for those customers who want to purchase something a bit more educational than what’s offered by K-Mart and the like.
We don’t have a big room available, but we do the other things you suggest. And there is a smaller book group that meets at the store sometimes.
It’s free to join the program. Just give us your phone number. There are no cards to carry. We enter your phone number with every purchase. Whenever your cumulative purchase total goes over $50, you get a $5 off certificate. You do not have to carry the certificate with you – it’s in the computer. The certificates never expire so you can use one on your next purchase or save up a bunch of them to use at Christmastime.
Since I’m a children’s nature writer and my wife is a former school board chair, we put a good bit of effort into it. Probably half of our children’s picture books are nature/science related. We try to stock classics (e.g., Dr. Seuss), fun/strange stuff (e.g., Walter the Farting Dog), and books with great artwork (e.g., Paul Goble). We have graded early readers, a young adult section that includes Western-focus books like Ken Thomasma’s historical fiction and Hank the Cowdog, but also classics like The Velveteen Rabbit. We have a separate young adult fantasy section and a shelf of graphic novels. We also carry Brain Quest and a selection of nature fandexes, along with stuff like Pop Bottle Science.
I want to shop at your store! 
As far as games go, try Bohnanza (Bohnanza - Wikipedia) We always love to play it.
And maybe a discussion/recommendation night or something? get fans of one genre (or sub-genre) to tell each-other “if you liked that book, you’ll (love/hate/feel mediocre about) this one, so (try it/burn it at the stake/do what you want)” how you do that is left as an exercise for the reader.
and maybe a suggestion box for your customers for which writers they want to read?
Update: The store next to us sells greeting cards (among many other things). They’re closing, so I bought out their cards.
That’s a wonderful idea, from my end; I’m one of those people who go into a bookstore saying “ok, three, no more than three”… and it ends up being three bags, so being able to have it shipped would be wonderful. It would be even greater if I could say to please hold it until such-and-such date so it doesn’t get home before I do.
Do you take orders? The best bookstore in the world (well, ok, my favorite; I’m willing to accept yours may be better but will need to perform a test run if I’m ever in Montana) does; their account system is similar to what you’re doing with the Frequent Readers. Clients’ reservations last longer if the item is prepaid/covered from the account’s balance, and depending on the type of item (if someone with no balance preorders an imported comic book, he better be there asking for it before the weekend is over, orders clear Customs on Fridays).
It’s helpful when a client is looking for a specific book, as well as for upcoming releases. Alejo once spent over a year looking for a book he thought I’d like (I hadn’t asked about it, it was the first one by that author, not translated into Spanish yet, out of print in English); Neuromancer is still a favourite of mine both because it really is my kind of book and because of that personal story.
Yes, we take special orders. In fact, we encourage them. Some months, they’re over 10% of our sales.
We’ve offered shipping for years, and it’s free if your purchase is over $50, but we really haven’t promoted it. Maybe we need some signs.
I’m not much into chairs in bookstores. If they’re there, fine, but if they’re not, I’m still going to buy a book.
I’m into bicycling, so I’m always buying “Best Bike Rides in Beauregard County” type books if I have my bike along. Bike stores usually have these, though.
My 7 y.o. girls like going to bookstores - one likes the toys (for instance she loves her sewing kit), the other likes books. They also like readings. And since mom or dad are in the store, hey this book looks good! One of them is turning into somewhat of a paper fetishist and is always trying to get us to buy her a neat-looking journal, diary, what have you. Her latest request is a leather bound pad from Levenger for Christmas. One thing she likes doing is writing “books” so she’ll take a few sheets of printer paper, fold them in half, and staple the fold, and that’s her ‘book’. However, some craft places sell real blank books (blank cover, nothing on the pages) and she loved those.