Whatever the motivation, booksellers must prepare for the invasion.
Chuck Robinson of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., offers some pointers:
- Pre-wrap hot titles so folks can get-and-go. This will not only speed up transactions but will provide a little relief to your gift-wrap folks.
- Make sure you have plenty of copies of your holiday catalog in prominent spots around the store. Readers love to use these as shopping lists in our store.
- Check out your section signage. There will likely be a lot of new buyers in the store. Don't assume they'll know where to find things.
- Review the shelf-tags and make sure they're current.
- Get those Thanksgiving books out of the way . . . one way or the other.
- Plan to get out on the floor a lot. This isn't the time to be hovering waiting for folks. Circulate and you'll sell a lot more books.
- And, of course, get plenty of rest, drink lots of water, wear good shoes, and eat well. It's the holiday season. Just remember, all things in moderation . . . including moderation.
"The day after
Thanksgiving is just when it starts getting exciting for us here,"
according to Steve Bercu of BookPeople, Austin, Tex. "Bryan Sansone,
our floor manager, advises booksellers to relax; take one customer at a
time; and know the strengths and weaknesses of your co-workers (so you
know who to get help from and when someone else may need help). We get
the gift wrap table ready, make sure our check-out lines are set up
well, have all our supplies, and start selling. For this year we will
have our 'Leftovers with Leslie' event featuring Leslie, our local
iconic cross-dresser, signing his exclusive Leslie Christmas refrigerator magnets. It should be lots of fun."
Thanksgiving
is also the official beginning of the dreaded holiday song season, and
Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Va., offers a remedy for
staff musical torture: "At the beginning of the season, each staffer is
required to put their least favorite holiday album or song in writing
in our pass down log (our notebook that we use for in-store
communication between shifts). No one is allowed to play the hated tune
during that bookseller's shift. You'd be surprised what can make a
bookseller crack and turn to a worthless pile of jelly in the eleventh
hour. Respect and take care of each other first and you can better take
care of the customers."
Mary Alice Gorman of Mystery Lovers
Bookshop, Oakmont, Pa., advises booksellers to "keep a good sense of
humor as this time of the year." She notes that you "will see old
friends and those folks who 'don't have time to read' but want to give
someone who reads a book but they don't know anything about them. Then
there's my personal fave--the person who wants to punish (my word) a
child who doesn't read by giving them a book to make them read. It is
the greatest fun to be the detective who finds the perfect book for
folks who are buying for a mystery lover based upon the one or two
clues that the gift given reveals."
She also urges booksellers to
"sell lots of gift certificates. At Mystery Lovers, anyone who redeems
their GC on Boxing Day (12/26) gets a free paperback of their choosing
and a free coffee. That's a day to make it all worthwhile."
For
Diane Van Tassell at Bay Books, Concord and San Ramon, Calif., it's
"all about planning ahead and having things ready to go. I don't expect
Black Friday to be much busier than the whole week of Thanksgiving
because schools are out so people are shopping. People who travel to
this area to visit relatives will be in shopping also. So we expect
frenzy for this next week. The bottom line is we are going to get lots
of sleep, try to be calm and friendly and just have lots of fun and
make the customers enjoy whatever time they have to spend standing in
line at the register (maybe bribe them with candy)."
Look for more booksellers' survival tips in Wednesday's issue. Meanwhile, I'll work on my sales floor game face for my 16th consecutive Black Friday.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)