Sales Tax
Shop Local / Localism
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Shop Local Handout - A guide to getting started with Local First/Shop Local campaigns.
- Samples from bookstores
- Independents Week: Creating a Community-Wide Local First Celebration At Any Time of the Year
Free Speech
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DIY Guide with three projects to help you get started
Independents Week: Creating a Community-Wide Local First Celebration At Any Time of the Year
- IndieBound Design Workshop
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For all of your IndieBound information, click here
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The 2% Solution: An Introduction to Profitability. An overview of strategies for increasing sales and reducing expenses.
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Budgeting and Monitoring Workbook will help put your budgeting procedures into practice. (Excel workbook) Financial Notes
- Co-op Advertising
The ABACUS study shows that profitable booksellers spend much less on advertising than unprofitable booksellers. This does not necessarily mean profitable bookstores advertise less, but it does mean that they claim more co-op. -
Cost of Goods Sold 101: You can’t make a plan to increase margin without first knowing and understanding your COGs.
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Increasing Margin: Strategies for optimizing your inventory by adding high margin items and more effectively managing trade sales. (pdf)
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Beating Up Your Landlord (or Renegotiating Your Lease): Occupancy cost is a bookstore’s second-largest expense, learn how to negotiate or renegotiate your terms.
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Surviving Tough Times: Here are some suggestions on how to prepare your business for tough times
- Surviving Tough Times: Best Practices from Booksellers: What other booksellers are doing to survive these tough economic times
- It's in the Payroll: Interactive Payroll Worksheet and Power Point
Planning Your Business
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Developing a Business Plan: Here's a model of a bookstore business plan to use as a guideline.
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Growing Your Business: There is a direct correlation between sales volume and profitability. One way to grow sales is to grow the store. It's important to examine the reasons for store expansion and the when's and how's of remodeling existing space, growing existing space, finding new space, and/or opening a second location.
- Reimagining Your Store: As the culture changes, so to does the way consumers think about, search for, and buy books. Here are some questions to consider when reimagining your store in order to adapt to social and cultural shifts.
Store Operations
- Intro to Buying: basics of buying, including: terminology, publisher buying, wholesaler buying, discount schedules--and more.
- Remainder Buying: demystify remainder buying and bring high-margin merchandise into your store.
- Immutable Laws of Customer Service: Customer service should be a bookstore's number-one focus, but sometimes the basics are forgotten. Here are specific customer service dos and don'ts that every bookseller should know and practice.
- Frontline Bookselling: Resources for the first-year bookseller.
- Improving Efficiency: By using their time more effectively, making staff more productive, and implementing efficiencies throughout the store, managers will be able to devote more time and energy to achieving important strategic goals for the store.
- Green Retailing: Being a green retailer, or an environmentally friendly retailer, will not only raise your status among your current and future customers, it will also save you money and increase your bottom line. Ways to Go Green at home or in the office. Advice from the Stella Group.
- Loss Control: How to Stop Profits From Running Out the Front (and Back) Door. Sample the Daily Records Sheet from Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops. Learn best practices to identify & control loss in your store.
- The Bookstore Self-Audit: This thorough review will help you evaluate your store operations and address important management issues.
- Independent Magazine Opportunity: Creating a Profitable Magazine Section by Ingram
Graphic Novels
- Buying, Merchandising, and Selling Graphic Novels
Romance
- 2009 Market Research Study of Romance Readers: A Survey Conducted by the Romance Writers of America
- Selling non-book items: List of vendors from Changing Hands Bookstore
Technology
- RFID: What You Need to Know. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the book industry.
- E-Books and Opportunities (Updated 02/2010)
- E-Reader Comparison Chart (Updated 02/2010)
Children's Bookselling
From the Association of Booksellers for Children
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Getting the Most Out of Your Children's Section: Managing Space, Staffing, Selection, & Programming for Category Growth.
- Getting More Out of Your Children's Section: Managing Staffing & Selection for Category Growth
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Give It Away to Get It Back: Using "Thought Leadership" Marketing to Build Your Children's Business.
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Building Productive & Profitable Relationships With Your Local Libraries
- The Gen-Z Reader: Understanding the New Reader of the Post-Electronic Age
Strategic Planning
- Succession Planning: Are you going to sell or buy a bookstore? Here are tips for ensuring a smooth transition.
Book Clubs
Book Fairs
Events
- Authorless Events: Authorless events can promote traffic in your store and increase sales -- which can help your store become an important hub in your community. Here are some important guidelines and a number of great event ideas.
- Creating Killer Events – General Rules: One of the most effective tools to set your store apart is a compelling events schedule. Here’s how to create one.
- Creating Killer Events Checklist – A detailed event-prep checklist, including special considerations for off-site goings-on.
- Managing Blockbuster Events -- How do you prepare for an event likely to draw 500, 1,000, or 5,000 people?
- Event Budget Worksheet -- This is a sample event budget worksheet booksellers can use as a guide to creating their own event budget.
Marketing
- Building and Rewarding Customer Loyalty: Loyalty matters -- now more than ever. Customers will be loyal to the business that adds the most value to their shopping experience, and -- with books sold in more outlets than ever before -- it's never been more important to establish the strongest relationship with your customers as possible. (pdf; 2008)
- E-mail Newsletters: Tips, strategies, and ideas for creating appealing, informative e-mail newsletters. And for instant content for your newsletters.
- Getting the Most Out of Your Website (PowerPoint presentation; 2008) and checklist of ideas for your website. (pdf)
- "It's a Wrap" Video Lab: Tips on how to use video to communicate with your customers
Publicity
- Booksellers at the Tipping Point: Leveraging Localism and Independence to Promote Your Store.
- Bookstore Publicity Kit: Templates you can use to publicize your bookstore, including a press release, pitch letter, bookstore fact sheet, and media alert.
- How to Be the Story: Implementing a Public Relations Plan
Sales
- Consumer Behavior Revealed: The Dating Game. Because consumers can buy books almost anywhere, independent booksellers need to add value to the book shopping experience. But to add value, we must first understand what motivates our customers.
- "Blind Date" -- video illustration of knowing your customer.
- Increasing Sales: Form stronger customer relationships, improve your sales and marketing, and more. (PowerPoint presentation; 2005)
Handselling
- Now available online are ABA's video vignettes, which dramatize 10 potential customer service scenarios to show the best and worst practices in five key areas of bookselling. (videos, 2007)
- Handselling: Customer Service with Results (pdf, 2009)
- Handselling Checklist (pdf; 2009)
- Handselling shelf talkers -- Autographed Copy Shelf Talkers, Local Author Shelf Talkers, and Staff Picks Shelf Talkers, to use with or without Indie Next List titles, and business products.
Customer Survey
- How to Conduct a Customer Survey -- A big factor in increasing your sales is getting feedback from your customers.
- Example Customer Survey -- courtesy of Bookshop Santa Cruz
- Training Guide for you and your staff