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I've spent nearly two decades in the book business as a bookseller, librarian, and author. I sell used books online and vintage specfic at antique and vintage markets. I live in a town without an indy used bookstore. It's a college town. Despite the large non-english-speaking population, the library doesn't carry non-english materials. Other than the vinyl seller I see at some of the same pop-up venues, there isn't a place around here that sells used media. I'm depressed because I didn't get into grad school. A friend of mine tried to cheer me up by suggesting I take my business to the next level and get a storefront and sell new and used media and geek frippery. I must have lost my mind because it sounds too doable. So please give me a large reality check. What am I not considering? Why shouldn't I do this?
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Mar 1, 2017 20:52
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:25 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Can you test the waters by doing in-person sales with some kind of longer-term but temporary booth setup, like a kiosk at a mall? The mall is pretty much dead. Not a lot of foot traffic. No local flea markets or consignment shops for the kind of setup you're talking about. I tried asking the committee that runs the local farmers' market about selling there but they got all snotty about their "locally produced" rule. I don't speak the languages I want to sell but I can source materials. I still have contacts and vendors from my time doing library collection development. I'm not too worried about my living situation. I have about 2K in savings on top of other arrangements I've made. The college is apartment-focused. If the campus itself is the core, there's a mix of apartment buildings and small shops that makes up the mantle. I'm not sure where the locals get their geek and media poo poo. I should put my MLIS to good use and make a research survey. Oyak posted:1) what is the rent? The ideal place I'd want to set up shop is a fairly new development with a couple restaurants and ample parking that's across from one of the main arteries into campus. It's also $38 per square foot, and the smallest space they offer is 1600 ft. I don't know if I can pull down 5K+ a month to stay in business. Another spot is a similar development a bit farther from campus but on the main highway. There was a Books-A-Million there but lack of advertising and the B&N five miles away caused it to close. Since BAM moved out, other restaurants have moved in as well as a chocolatier and upscale theater. Rent is $30/sqft and their smallest space is 1400. $3500 in rent per month is more doable. There are plenty of places in this hipster town to advertise and, unlike every library administration I've dealt with around here, I know that you need to spend money to get quality business and free advertising tends to be ineffective or worse, negative. Trillian posted:The obvious question that follows from "I'm considering this because I didn't get into grad school" is, how much money do you have to invest? Thesaurus posted:follow your dreams, OP I mostly wanted to get into grad school to learn how to teach. While I have savings, the program I wanted to get into paid tuition and a stipend in exchange for teaching. Kinda moot now. Other than ~$400 on a credit card (medical bills) I don't have debt and my previous degrees are paid for. I have about $2K liquid. I need to research what financial assistance is available for women small business owners as well as local options. I'm good at research. I like research. Sundae posted:What books can you possibly sell in enough volume and at a high enough price that you'll reliably make rent on your brick & mortar store that a college student can't get for way loving cheaper on Amazon? College towns are the central locations of all ridiculous "indie" business ideas and the book industry is an ancient one. If nobody has an indie book store open in your town already, it's because it can't stay open. Preliminary research has shown me that the only two indie book stores that tried to hack it here went under quickly because they sold rare books and only rare books. And it turns out there IS a local used bookstore that relies on the business model Modest Mouse cover band mentioned. They don't advertise and they don't have a website--I learned of their existence through a Facebook page. I need to visit this place. There are several textbook stores and about a dozen pop-up buyback sites at semester's end. That market's knitted up well and good. Back during my retail bookstore days, I was one of the people canvassing the local schools for summer reading lists, so that's covered at least. Rather than market a bookstore as an Amazon/B&N alternative, I'd prefer to market it as the literary counterpart of a similar local business: a paint-your-own-thingy place that is a pillar of the town's shop local movement and supports the local visual arts through gallery shows and artist workshops. The town council, being all town council-y in its town councilness, has formed a committee to research the development opportunities for literary arts growth. I can move faster than that. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Put a business plan together in here, it'll be fun. I've been stickied.  There's a business plan maker on the SBA website. Made an account, starting the document work. FYI: My background is in English literature, library and information science, and public administration. I have never taken a business class; fwiw I've taken a couple budgeting workshops for public sector work and leadership conferences and the like.  I want to sell gently used books and A/V materials, select new books by local authors, and select new books in non-English languages in a retail storefront and online through Amazon and Better World Books as well as geek-minded impulse items (bookmarks and bookplates, bumper stickers, magnets, posters, etc.) My target customers are the local supporters of the arts, the folks who frequent the vintage/antique/consignment markets, and local college students who can't find a local source for reading materials in their own language. The "target customers" part of the SBA document is troublesome. I can't just say "people like me who enjoy the thrill of the chase that a used bookstore provides." Likewise, I've been in enough bookstores and libraries to know what doesn't work but I don't know the business language to describe it. I want to encourage repeat business with throughput. What drives me bananas about used bookstores is when nothing's displayed like the owner wants to sell it. Nothing's organized, poo poo's still in boxes all over the floor, etc. Or it's full of 20-year-old library discards. I want to stock nice-looking books in subjects that locals actually read (or collect, in the case of military history and trains) and be able to have enough new-to-me things for a browser who comes in maybe once a week. I also want to hook into the arts community by partnering up with the local authors' group and host readings and signings. My biggest competitor would be Amazon of course. I'd need to do what Amazon can't because of its size: more services tailored to the person like recommendations and book searches. I'd need to do enough to have someone weigh the option of getting a used book from Amazon for about five bucks versus buying from my store. There's also a Barnes and Noble in the next town over. I'd need to stock what they don't (local authors in particular) but not sure what else to do on that front. There used to be a Books-A-Million here but its location, lack of advertising, and proximity to the big B drove it out of business. There are at least four textbook-only stores around here. The Goodwill bookstore was turned into a Goodwill career development center. The library has a little used book shop and people rarely use it because the selection blows. I'll keep plugging away at this business plan.
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Mar 2, 2017 18:23
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goodnight mooned posted:No, $50000 would be the cost price. I know I'm not going to be dropping 50K on inventory. For my piddly little 99% online book selling business, I never pay more than $1 for a book. I go to yard sales to make closing time deals, estate sales to bid on boxes, and library book sales to glean the good stuff. I'm not sure how much I would spend on intentionally buying used inventory. I'm still trying to price a good starter collection of non-English books and local authors. 10K at the very most. EDIT: I wouldn't rely on B2B liquidators for inventory, based on experiences I've had purchasing for libraries. Good source for mass market children's books and some fiction and not much else. I would be investigating publisher remainder services for specific nonfiction. Non-English will take more research.) At the vintage market, I sell 50-cent paperbacks and dollar hardcovers. My "booth" (a spot on the sidewalk big enough for a folding card table) is $20 for four hours. The card table was maybe thirty bucks (got it from a Kmart going out of business) and I have a chair. I borrow a canopy if the weather's bad. I've done it three times and made $77, $159, and $104 respectively, cash only. Started raining the first day and the people vanished, even though most of the market was under the covered walk and the rest of us had canopies. I could probably get more buyers if I took credit cards but I can't enforce a minimum purchase to justify the fees. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:My favorite local bookstore, Chevalier's Books doesn't sell used books, but they're targeting the exact kinds of customers you're talking about. The space is small but well-organized, with clearly-labeled shelves, and they do a couple things that make me go "oh, something new!" every time I visit even though I'm in there at least once a week. My favorite kind of used bookstore has the atmosphere and selection of Riverby's and the organization of McKay's. I'd weight nonfiction and throw in some popular fiction because it's hard to find mystery and speculative fiction used around here. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:The first thing I see wrong with your plan is that in order to pay yourself: And I'm stalled out on the projected expenses part of the sba.gov fill-in-the-blank business plan. Looks like I'm going to have to make two: the ideal plan where I buy everything new and off the rack and rent the ideal place and the more realistic plan where I buy everything secondhand. (Still renting the ideal place. After studying the government-issued local impact statements, if I want to make a destination sort of place, it needs to be in one of the campus hubs with bus access, which means $25-40/sqft places.) I brought my Drake fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 20:16
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:How are you going to have time to do this and run front of house 8+ hours a day? I edited my post with more thoughts. I'm pretty sure what I'm doing now for sourcing isn't stable for the long haul. Though I'd be a fool to pass up the biannual library book sales around here. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:You're interested in the kind of socially-worthy gentrifying cultural business civic boosters like to support. Are there any small business grants you might be eligible for? If you are a minority or woman there are sometimes specialized ones for entrepreneurship. You might be able to get advantageous rates on small business loans for the same reasons. Probably? I qualify for the ones available to women. There's also a local angel investors group that several people told me to go visit, but the thought of giving them this pile of papers in progress and asking for money makes giggle like I should be in a straitjacket. I brought my Drake fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 20:24
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Sundae posted:If she decides to do any food or drink stuff, this is just a placeholder reminder: food service permits. Pretty sure you're stuck with at least some kind of application even if it's just tea and cookies. Yep, even if it's just a Keurig. As for other stuff, storage and display shelving for books and A/V as well as inventory control software like Basil are the big things. I'm in love with chest-high library checkout counters but the used ones are a pain in the rear end to refinish and the new ones are 5K at least. Booktrucks as well as a dolly. I can do like the other local shops and have the decorations available for purchase. Tchochke displays, already have a bunch of those. Far and away the biggest cost is going to be shelving, whether I buy it new and assemble it or buy the parts and build it. I'm looking at $300-$500 for every double-sided 32 x 96 inch shelving unit. And then there's wall units, kid-friendly shelving, endcaps, etc. Start with used library shelving (cuts price by a third) and maybe plan on getting nicer stuff in the future? Should I have wifi access? I'm at (library) work now and I have access to government surplus.
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Mar 2, 2017 22:58
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I found out a couple days ago that one of my cats has cancer so my liquid savings are shrinking. This definitely isn't something I'm going to do this year, let alone this week. I'm still fine-tuning a survey that I can advertise on campus and in various other hipster places. I'm baffled as to why there isn't an independent bookstore new or used in this area. There have been three attempts in the past fifteen years and I'm still assembling the details on those from public records. I know I need more money for this venture, that's not lost on me. I also believe that physical media will be relevant for some time to come. It would be my job as a seller to stock a shop with stuff that people can't buy with two clicks and free shipping. Hence schlepping my cheap specfic titles to the vintage market.
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Mar 6, 2017 00:32
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Yup. There's a pill-based chemo so I'm doing that rather than something more invasive. She's a great cat and if I can give her a few more months, it's worth it. I'm not sure if people would buy the merchandise or just read it while hanging out in the cafe.
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Mar 6, 2017 08:20
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I'm still here, don't worry. Nothing all that new to report. Finished the sbc.gov business plan, visited the local small business development center to talk with one of their counselors, and now I'm redoing the finance page. It was an eye-opener going through the figures. Reading through The E-Myth Revisited. Not the most thrilling thing I've ever read. Researched the other bookstores that closed. A bookstore in 2003 that opened in a space with very little parking and books that sold for 1-2 bucks. Now an online seller of rare books in another part of the state. Bookstore that closed in 2012 had at lease two different addresses, one of them being a hole in the wall with very little parking. The Goodwill bookstore closed last year so their career development center could have the building and the stock moved to the main Goodwill store. Books-A-Million had very little visibility at its location before it closed, plus local competition from B&N, plus BAM is terrible. Put together the survey. Not quite sure how to spread the word about it. Friends suggested social media, I'm thinking about posting flyers around campus, at Starbucks, etc.
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Mar 17, 2017 06:02
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A few dedicated parking spaces would suit me fine. Trouble with a college town is that no one wants to pay a lot for convenient parking or a little for slightly inconvenient parking, so all the dollar-two-hour spots get snorked up super fast as well as all the free spots. To survive in the college town main shopping area, a business has to rely on foot traffic or dedicated spaces where the business can tow a car using the space if the driver's not currently at the business in question. That or find a place in some strip mall with a parking lot, dunno. Decided to run my survey during April. Gonna see how it goes.
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Mar 23, 2017 04:08
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:25 |
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I'm already doing that with vintage speculative fiction (horror, sci-fi, etc.) at the vintage market. I've investigated pop-up shops at the mall but the mall's pretty much dead and it's not worth the cost, even in December. We have one of those head-up-the-rear end farmers markets that won't let people sell goods that weren't produced in a 20 mile radius of town. I've scoped out the consignment shops and flea markets within a two-hour drive of here and they either have an established book dealer or the clientele doesn't seem interested in books. I suppose I could try renting a space at one of the latter ones so I have an experience to work from rather than speculation.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:19
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