Published in Canadian Bookseller, Volume 1, 2008:
Whenever I go into a huge bookstore, I am thrilled by the many titles. Every book ever published seems to be on display. I wander around, glancing at one cover, flipping through another book, drifting from one department to another, amazed at the choices. Some look fabulous, some don’t appeal. Which books should I buy? How can I choose?
Then a funny thing happens. I get a little weary. I lose interest. There are so many books before me, that I suspect I cannot choose just one. And since I don’t have the budget, time or space to let me buy 20 books, I always seem to do the same thing: I end up buying none.
I also have a favourite, smaller bookstore that I go to regularly. There, the selection is reduced, but I see no duds. Every book looks important, a must-read. An even more curious thing happens here. I see books that I already own, and have lost interest in reading, yet I want to buy them again. Maybe they’re better than I thought!
In the huge store I am so overwhelmed by choice that I buy none. Every book ends up looking like it will exhaust me to read. In the smaller store every book looks so attractive that I’m tempted to buy ones that I’ve already discarded. The smaller store has already weeded out the dull books, leaving only the best on offer, a service that draws me in.
Many other people, of course, seem to be content to get their reading matter from jumbo bookstores, department stores, grocery stores, even hardware stores. These large, diversified outlets often sell books at rock-bottom prices, which is hardly surprising if their main focus is actually soap or tires. Independent booksellers have been challenged by this for years.
Despite having a big box store open down the street, some independent booksellers are surviving if not thriving. The one piece of advice that the ones contacted for this article all seem to give, is to remain focused on your individual vision for your store.
Creativity would also seem to be a big help. Jay and Jeannie Levinson’s Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing contains this anecdote:
There was once a little store in the middle of two giant stores. One day the little store owner was dismayed to come into work and find that each of the two larger stores had hung huge banners outside announcing “Grand Opening Sale – prices slashed 50 percent” and “Monster Clearance Sale – prices slashed 75 percent.” Worse yet, each banner was larger than his own store.
The little store owner, being a guerrilla, and knowing he couldn’t compete with those kind of prices, responded by creating and displaying his own banner, which simply read…”Main Entrance.”
Alberta’s The Book & Art Den, which has been located in Banff since 1965, is facing competition from a large chain store that opened nearby only six months ago. Neil Wedin is concerned about the practice of discounting, and has done research into his competitor’s record with publishers and distributors in payment terms, discounts, payment history and reliability. “Are they consistently paying their bills?” he wants to know.
Wedin believes that his store has a few competitive advantages. “Full-service special orders and no-charge frequent buyer programs have been in place for years,” he says. “Deeply connected community concern and involvement has always been our forté. We continue to be great booksellers with a concern for books and people.”
The Owl’s Nest Bookstore has been in Calgary’s Britannia Plaza since 1996. In 2000, a Chapters/Indigo Chinook Centre opened. Co-owner Michael Hare notes that the Chinook store has never been trouble, possibly because it is increasingly devoting space to merchandise other than books. In fact, Hare reveals that their sales actually increased after Chapters opened in Chinook.
“It’s somewhat difficult to explain,” he begins. “The numbers are real but our analysis is simply conjecture. We believe many of our customers visited Chapters and returned to us because of their experience in our bookstore. The ambience is different. The level of customer service is superior. Many feel very much at home here. Then, when comparing notes with friends, our store is comparied favourably to Chapters and our sales go up.”
Things changed in June of last year, when a small-format Indigo store opened nearby. “The Indigo on 17^th Ave. is a concern,” says Hare. “It’s clearly targeting independents in the area. They have opened a general trade bookstore without a specialty focus. They are definitely going after the ‘independent’ customer.”
The one change that Owl’s Nest made, says Hare, is in the purchase of inventory. “We moved away from the ‘just-in-time’ concept to ensuring we had a season’s worth of stock at the beginning of the season. This makes us more susceptible to mistakes and therefore a worse, not better bookseller. It also negatively affects cash flow.”
Owl’s Nest Bookstore staff make an effort to stand out from their competition. “Personalized service is hard to beat,” Hare says. “We know hundreds of customers by name. We have over 11,000 customers in our database.”
They do a lot of business with various book clubs, offering a 10 per cent discount on all book club books, and hosting two in-store book clubs for children and one mystery book club for adults. Small wonder that their business has grown by word of mouth.
“We reach out to the community through our school library book fairs,” adds Hare. “We now do close to 20 every year. 15 to 20 per cent of the sales revenue is returned to the school library.”
More trouble is now coming from a different source than big-box stores. Hare says “Our in-store business has flatlined during the past two years. We are losing the business to online buying.”
Two bookstores that are thriving, have been around since long before the Internet. A Different Drummer Books opened in Burlington, Ont. in 1970, and Pages Books and Magazines has been on Queen St. in Toronto since 1979, before big-box stores “were gleams in any conglomerate’s eye,” according to Pages’ proprietor Marc Glassman.
Richard Bachmann, owner of A Different Drummer, has seen plenty of developments over the years. “If you can meeet a need with some taste and flair, people will respond,” he says. “Burlington certainly responded. We had a fair swath of southern Ontario more or less to ourselves for quite a number of years.” Then Chapters opened their first store, in Burlington.
“At the time, we had been in business about 25 years and they had been in business for 25 days, yet everyone knew they were there,” Bachmann recalls. “There was the matter of geography. Not coming downtown made it easier for some. We did lose our irregular customers and it was a bit startling to see how much of our business that was. Sales were effected. We also drew back on staff. In fact, the shop ran better with a smaller staff.”
Glassman remembers the impact that chain-store competition initially made on Pages. “In the first year our sales went down about seven per cent. The next year we went up about 20 per cent and the third year was even better.”
His reason for this is that “We’ve followed our own path. We have always been ‘a better bookseller.’ We didn’t need a big-box store near to make us ‘spring into action.’ We’ve been thinking, changing, improving all along. Like my friend Mr. Bachmann, we’re marching to a different drummer. Or turning a different page.”
Bachmann continues his reminiscence from years ago. “Some publishers were gleefully anticipating a great new epoch as miles of additional shelves would be filled across Canada. We sensed then, that having a large customer base is a mixed blessing and that filling shelves is rather different from selling books. Some booksellers went into dervish mode, spinning wildly – add a coffee bar, start a loyalty program, discount like crazy — indeed, do whatever it takes. And I cannot say that their worries were without merit.”
Glassman shares some tactics that help shoppers prefer his store. “We sell different and more interesting books. Pages has a superb and unique book launch program called ‘This is not a Reading Series’ that keeps us in the public eye. We work with the local arts community on events, often giving window displays and selling tickets for no cost and with great relish. We connect to people, hand sell and help in many personal ways.”
Hare’s advice for competing with big boxes is “Don’t make any radical changes, but watch very closely. Don’t assume that a moral high ground will save your store. Visit the new store monthly, and react to noticeable trends. Buy new non-book-related items. Negotiate with publishers because sometimes, better margins are available. Build upon what you do best.”
Bachmann emphasizes this last point. “The only thing we could sensibly do was to be more like ourselves, not more like them. We had been doing a credible job of bookselling for a couple of decades and didn’t believe it necessary to change our ways. We continued bookselling. No coffee, no scented candles, no discounts. We remained profitable.”

By Gloria Hildebrandt