Because of "lackluster sales," many general retailers are "scrambling to wring a few last dollars from procrastinators by slashing prices, extending hours and wooing customers more persistently than last year," today's Wall Street Journal reported. Promotions and long opening hours are among the tactics being used. For example, some Macy's stores on the East Coast will stay open all weekend--107 hours straight in one case.
Total foot traffic at U.S. retailers is down 8.9% in the second full week of December compared to the same period a year ago, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp. But online sales rose 19% to $23.5 billion between November 1 and December 16, comScore said. The National Retail Federation predicts a 4% sales gain in 2007, the lowest growth in five years.
---
Nebraska Book Co. has bought nine more private, off-campus college bookstores, bringing the total it owns to more than 260, according to the AP (via the Houston Chronicle). President Mark Oppegard said that Nebraska Book Co. plans to continue to grow by purchasing stores. It also sells textbooks to nearly 2,500 college bookstores.
---
Bookselling This Week profiled Sherri White, her sister, Traci Giganti, and their bookstore and cafe, Book Crossing, Brunswick, Md., which opened in 2004. The store is in the downtown of a Washington, D.C., suburb that is undergoing a revitalization project. Located near a railroad station, Book Crossing caters to commuters, opening at 5 a.m., and it recently expanded into space next door, doubling in size to 2,000 square feet.
---
In April 2009, Barnes & Noble plans to open a store in the Corbin Park shopping center in Overland Park, Kan., near Kansas City.
---
Borders has launched an online store with Sony that offers digital downloads of more than 25,000 e-books to people who have bought Sony Readers at Borders stores. Borders is now selling the Reader in most of its U.S. superstores. The site is also accessible to Borders customers via the stores' wi-fi service who can download software and purchase and download e-books directly to their personal computers.
Sony is running a promotion whereby customers who purchase the Reader on or before January 15 will receive a $50 credit toward the purchase of e-books from the co-branded store as well as 100 free eBooks Classics from Sony.
---
"What championed the book were women's groups, book clubs and independent stores," author Greg Mortenson told USA Today regarding the surprise bestseller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, which he wrote with David Oliver Relin.
The article also noted that Mortenson "pushed to have the book's subtitle changed. In hardcover, it was One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism . . . One School at a Time. In paperback, it was revised to One Man's Mission to Promote Peace."
"The public is interested in peace, just as much as fighting terrorism," said the author. "So far, no politician seems to have their finger on that pulse."
---
The Taunton Press, Newtown, Conn., which publishes about 50 titles a year in home design, home-building, gardening, cooking, crafts and woodworking, will be distributed exclusively to the trade by Ingram Publisher Services, effective June 1, 2008. The Taunton Press is currently distributed by Random House.
In a statement, Taunton's book division publisher Don Linn commented: "We are extremely impressed with the team Ingram has assembled and with their strategy, particularly in the digital arena which will be an increasingly important part of our own strategy moving forward."
Linn is former owner and CEO of Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, which he sold to Perseus Books Group in August 2006. He joined Taunton this past fall.
---
Last-minute book gift lists:
It’s just fine to drink and read," the New York Times advised in its wine book roundup.
The Telegraph selected Christmas books for children.
The best books of 2007 list in the Moscow Times came with a cautionary note that "the country Russia becomes will depend on what it's willing to remember."
Entertainment Weekly's best and worst books of 2007 included "five titles you'll be hard-pressed to give away at yard sales for years to come."