[This is part one of a two-part series about Blue Willow Bookshop, a
Texas store that keeps building on past successes and embarking on new
initiatives. Today we cover some of what the store has done this year;
tomorrow we'll talk about titles that Blue Willow is handselling.]
Every year the Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex., aims to grow 10%, a target it has reached all but one year since Valerie Koehler opened the store in 1996. (The one off year was 2002, during which Blue Willow was up over the previous year, but not 10%.) "We're on track to hit 10% again," Koehler told Shelf Awareness. "We work hard at it. We'll die young, but we like it."
The store is "not doing anything big and flashy" for the holiday season, Koehler continued, but is taking a kind of incremental approach. "We're learning each year how to do something better. Every year we get a little wiser. When we do something new, we track it and determine if it's successful and how to do it the next time. We don't reinvent the wheel if we don't have to." With a laugh, she added, "And we steal from others if we can."
One contributing factor to a good start in December is that the weather has turned chilly. "Sometimes in the South, it's hard to get into the mood when it's 200% humidity and 95 degrees," she said.
Among other initiatives, this year the store has made "a concerted effort" to take advantage of marketing coop money, which has helped the bottom line. For example, when putting out a bookmark, the store decided to have a book advertisement on it. Koehler commented: "Why not have someone pay for the whole thing?"
In the same vein, the store is getting coop for some of the titles it's now reviewing on its Web site--but not to the extent of letting coop determine selection. "We don't want to promote titles we don't like," she said. "Instead we ask, 'What did you read and like and can we get coop for it?' We pick titles we like."
During the year, Blue Willow Bookshop also hired someone to update its Web site weekly and has begun sending e-mail newsletters to educators and to general customers in an effort "to try to keep our presence in front of people." The store has had a print newsletter and cut its subscription list dramatically because many people on it hadn't shopped in the store in a long time. Blue Willow continues to send out a printed newsletter--to some 2,000 people--and now has an e-list of 600, which continues to grow. The two newsletters are identical and come out monthly, although Blue Willow did not publish a December edition; instead, it did a holiday issue similar to last year's, which was "such a success." The holiday edition featured 12 picks, mostly books but also "a game or sideline."
In general, Blue Willow "keeps pounding the same message home: that if customers want service, they should come here," Koehler said. "We can't compete with the big guys but we provide a neighborhood atmosphere. Many of our staff know the people in the area. We try to be a family and be upbeat."
Koehler aims to involve everyone in the store; even the people in the back room are part of the process of recommending and reading new titles. "We make sure galleys go far and wide on staff, and everyone knows what everyone else is reading," Koehler said. Laughing, she added, "We try to be one big happy family that fights every so often."
Stores on the main corridor in the area recently formed a merchants association, and Koehler has a sense that her "little, old-fashioned store" has a place in Houston, the fifth-largest city in the country. A Barnes & Noble is three miles away, but because of Houston's notorious and increasingly bad traffic, "it's a long three miles," Koehler said. "Many people are staying in the neighborhood, but I do know in the metro area that there are many options. If I can get a part of the pie, I'm happy."
Every year the Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex., aims to grow 10%, a target it has reached all but one year since Valerie Koehler opened the store in 1996. (The one off year was 2002, during which Blue Willow was up over the previous year, but not 10%.) "We're on track to hit 10% again," Koehler told Shelf Awareness. "We work hard at it. We'll die young, but we like it."
The store is "not doing anything big and flashy" for the holiday season, Koehler continued, but is taking a kind of incremental approach. "We're learning each year how to do something better. Every year we get a little wiser. When we do something new, we track it and determine if it's successful and how to do it the next time. We don't reinvent the wheel if we don't have to." With a laugh, she added, "And we steal from others if we can."
One contributing factor to a good start in December is that the weather has turned chilly. "Sometimes in the South, it's hard to get into the mood when it's 200% humidity and 95 degrees," she said.
Among other initiatives, this year the store has made "a concerted effort" to take advantage of marketing coop money, which has helped the bottom line. For example, when putting out a bookmark, the store decided to have a book advertisement on it. Koehler commented: "Why not have someone pay for the whole thing?"
In the same vein, the store is getting coop for some of the titles it's now reviewing on its Web site--but not to the extent of letting coop determine selection. "We don't want to promote titles we don't like," she said. "Instead we ask, 'What did you read and like and can we get coop for it?' We pick titles we like."
During the year, Blue Willow Bookshop also hired someone to update its Web site weekly and has begun sending e-mail newsletters to educators and to general customers in an effort "to try to keep our presence in front of people." The store has had a print newsletter and cut its subscription list dramatically because many people on it hadn't shopped in the store in a long time. Blue Willow continues to send out a printed newsletter--to some 2,000 people--and now has an e-list of 600, which continues to grow. The two newsletters are identical and come out monthly, although Blue Willow did not publish a December edition; instead, it did a holiday issue similar to last year's, which was "such a success." The holiday edition featured 12 picks, mostly books but also "a game or sideline."
In general, Blue Willow "keeps pounding the same message home: that if customers want service, they should come here," Koehler said. "We can't compete with the big guys but we provide a neighborhood atmosphere. Many of our staff know the people in the area. We try to be a family and be upbeat."
Koehler aims to involve everyone in the store; even the people in the back room are part of the process of recommending and reading new titles. "We make sure galleys go far and wide on staff, and everyone knows what everyone else is reading," Koehler said. Laughing, she added, "We try to be one big happy family that fights every so often."
Stores on the main corridor in the area recently formed a merchants association, and Koehler has a sense that her "little, old-fashioned store" has a place in Houston, the fifth-largest city in the country. A Barnes & Noble is three miles away, but because of Houston's notorious and increasingly bad traffic, "it's a long three miles," Koehler said. "Many people are staying in the neighborhood, but I do know in the metro area that there are many options. If I can get a part of the pie, I'm happy."