First of all, congratulations, Lynn! That’s so cool - if I had to choose any profession (other than my own), I think I would own a bookstore or coffee shop. Anyway, what sort of bookstore has it been in the past? Does it have neighborhood “regulars?” What sort of area is it located in (i.e., strip mall, a neighborhood, an industrial area)? Is it a genre bookstore?
I think the suggestion for a customer comment box is a great one. Also, organization is definitely key. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to find a book when a book store has no rational layout.
My favorite used book store has several comfy chairs that you can sink into when looking at books. Also, there’s usually coffee - it’s good, hot and very cheap (I think something like .50 per cup with .10 refills). The staff at the store are very knowledgeable and helpful, and the store is always open on time, and is always open during the posted hours. I know it seems obvious - be open when you say you will be - however, there are several book shops and coffee shops around who haven’t internalized this. Their storefronts read certain hours, but they rarely open when they say they will, and they’re rarely open for the hours advertised. It’s made for a really confused and greatly diminished customer base.
It could have a decorative logo on one side ( Lynn, you DO have a Doper artist working on a store logo, right??? ) and on the other side the Straight Dope Banner and logo.
Under Bodoni Book Bag, it could read, " Fighting illiteracy since 2004".
This might be a mistake. My personal experience is that I assume the default price is 50% of the original cover price. So if I’m in a book store that’s charging 55% I tend to think of the prices as being higher than average, which in many cases leads me to think “I can find this at another used book store”. On the other hand if a used book store is selling books at 45% of cover prices, I think of the books as bargains and tend to buy books I would not otherwise buy. Obviously the question is whether the loss of 10% on each sale will be made up for by additional sales. And I’ll grant that I’m not a typical book buyer (I’m not in the top one percent; I’m in the top one percent of the top one percent).
I second this. A used CD store I used to spend WAY too much money in has special racks where they place all of their acquisitions from the past week, in order by day that they received them. The first thing I did when I got there was scan through those. Often I would come across a CD that in the back of my mind I had wanted for a while, or an artist that I had heard good things about. As I said, I spent a lot of money there because I never bought just what I was looking for–I usually picked up a few extra on impulse (plus, there’s the fear that someone else will get them, especially if they are rare).
That plan seems to work for them, as one of their TV adds was nothing but the footage and clicking sound of someone working through the new arrival section.
After considering the responses, and talking to my manager a few days ago, I have decided to keep the store open until 8 PM, as soon as we can get a couple of additional people trained and able to staff it during those hours. I won’t be waiting to see if we can afford to keep the store open later…I’m going to make that one of the top priorities, and hope that it will draw in enough people to pay for the staff. So y’all have made me change my plans a little bit.
I think that I’m going to use “The book shop with the cats” as part of the advertising theme. Apparently, a lot of people make a special trip to the shop in order to see the cats, and pet Simon, who is willing to let anyone pet him for however long they’ll do it. He likes little kids, too, as long as they don’t get too rough with him. Schuster will only allow certain people to pet her, and she never tolerates it for long.
Tee hee. You forget, this is Lynn. They’d each order a half-dozen as holiday gifts and whistle by the graveyard. They know better than to mess with her !!!
Okay. It was a foul idea. HOWEVER- I’m not sure that a small round table with each of the Straight Dope books in piles along with some SD coffee mugs is out of line. It’d establish her cred really fast with the in crowd, and she can sell the mugs for $ 20.00 apiece - sendingthe profits to help support the new servers in Chicago…
Remember, spring is only 9 months away. Cats’ll be making babies. You can get triplet kittens and expand the pride of cats to Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich.
I have quite a few childrens books that range from sets of DISNEYS WONDERFUL WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE, YOUNG READERS LIBRARY SET , old sets of SESEME STREET books… I would like to sell these books, buit I am having a hard time trying to find anyone that doesnt want a million dollars to look at them, or a book on books, that doesnt even have my books in it. Any I deas on where to sell these online? and someone that may help me find out the value of these. Thnk you for your time.
Just a minnit, let me brush the dust off this.
Okay, there we go.
Hmmm. Amazon has something like that, but I have no idea how it works. I sometimes see used books for sale there.
Aside to Lynn Bodoni, How about an update on your store. It has been a loooong time.
Thanks,
mangeorge
Your best bet is to probably try to sell them as a group, if you really want to sell them. Unless you have pristine first editions, though, you won’t get much money for them. I’d just donate them to a local kids’ charity. You can do a search on both Amazon and on eBay to see how much people are asking for them. Make sure to do a search on COMPLETED auctions on eBay, too, because the asking price does NOT equal the selling price. Most people overestimate the value of their used books, especially things like Reader’s Digest Condensed books, and any books that are put out in sets. In addition, if these books were read at all, then their condition is probably no better than fair. Last, the production values on books of this sort are not the best, and they don’t hold up well.
As for the book store, the deal fell through. It was started by the owner’s late wife, and while he didn’t want to run it himself, he overpriced it, badly. I probably could have reasoned with him, bird in the hand and all that. He had let the business go downhill, and I would have really had to do a lot of work to make it profitable again. But. Both the manager and the assistant manager (my daughter) got much better offers elsewhere. Since I needed at least one of them to help me run the place, I decided to not buy the store, as I didn’t know enough about the business to make it profitable. I could have hired someone else, but I knew and trusted both the manager and my daughter, and they knew me. I do buy and sell a few books here and there, but more as a hobby than anything else.
A long time customer adopted the cats. My daughter met up with her later, and she reported that both cats enjoyed having people around almost all day, and they ESPECIALLY enjoyed sleeping on people beds. They had had cushions, and enjoyed sleeping in the upholstered chairs at the shop, but apparently people beds were better. The sociable male DID miss his fan club of folks who would drop by the shop to see him, but he was willing to swap that for having a full-time family.
