An Ace in the Hole, Part II

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The adult visitors to your store will be looking for a particular ambiance too and a few well-chosen yard-sale purchases can help provide it. A braided rug here and there, strategically placed reading chairs, and refreshments can all add to the experience of visiting a used bookstore. And it can't be stressed too many times that an experience is what you are providing.

My store is furnished to encourage customers to spend as long as they want looking through the books. We have some very good customers who will spend the better part of an afternoon in the store and leave without making a purchase. But the seed has been planted. Those same people will blow in a week later, go directly to the shelves they had been browsing, and within fifteen minutes be back at the checkout with $20-$50 worth of books.

Yard sales and auctions are also a great source for the bookshelves that you will need to display your volumes. When we first went into our new location we had many old wooden tables that were already there and available for our use. While they were not ideal for our purposes, they have served us well as we gradually replaced them with home-built shelving.

Coffee, tea, and doughnuts are always available as a courtesy and if people come in and leave with nothing but a full stomach and a warm feeling, that's fine with us. I know they will be back. The cost of that type of hospitality is far outweighed by the customer satisfaction, word of mouth, and loyalty that it produces.

Getting the Word Out

One problem you will share with other retailers is how to connect your product with your customers. Most people, unless coaxed, will buy just what they perceive to be the necessities of life. Now you and I know that books should be included in that category, but the general public may need some coaxing.

Often, the most effective method of coaxing or advertising for a used bookstore can be very simple and inexpensive. Simply write to the book-loving acquaintances that you know. Let them know what your specialties are and whenever you have a sale. If opening a store interests you, then you have probably spent quite a bit of your life around others who love them as you do.

We run specials every month on a display table celebrating not only a major theme (African-American history, women's rights, American presidents, World War II) but also the birthdays of that month's literary lights. Books are set out attractively on the table at a 10% discount of what may in February may include works about and by Kennedy, Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt. The other half of the display will include books of such birthday celebrants as John Steinbeck, Charles Darwin, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

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