Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

Last week we were contacted by a reporter from a local television station. He wanted to know what we were doing differently because we keep opening stores while other local book store operators are going out of business.

We have been asked the same question by our customers many times during the past couple of years and our answer is still the same - “We don’t know how anyone could possibly fail in this business but we do know it can be exhausting and there are many reasons to quit!”

This type of business attracts mostly book lovers but a business is a business and the business aspects are important. Almost anyone can learn this business if they work at it but we feel it is the work itself that is the most important part. The more you do the more you learn. Building a broad-based and saleable inventory takes many years of listening to many customers. The more customers you serve the more you learn. .  

We have employed many people over the years and the most common failing we have seen is that they learn so much during the first three months they actually think they know something - and they start to coast. We suspect the same failing is true in people who start their own business.

The fact is - none of us will never know very much about the book business - it is too broad and too deep and changes quickly. A book which sold regularly suddenly stops selling and books we had stopped buying suddenly become hot again. 

Our average book sells for less than $7.00 so it takes many book sales every day just to pay the rent at the end of the month.

The only unusual thing we have been doing is teaching the computer to run the book business. It is not there yet, and may never be, but it has come a long way and it never forgets the lessons it has learned, never gets tired of learning new tasks and never thinks it knows enough.

For the mostpart our staff is addicted to entering data because they have learned every entry they make makes us better as an organization and makes their job easier.

We have long term plans for improving the book business in many directions but at this point the processes we focus upon are for providing the best customer service possible.