Cover to Cover Books for Young Readers in Columbus, Ohio, will remain closed to browsing until the state's shelter-in-place order is lifted. The store is currently providing free delivery on all orders shipping to central Ohio, and media mail shipping anywhere in the continental U.S. for only $5, manager Bryan Loar reported. Loar and his team are offering consultations over the phone and via e-mail, as well as creating curated online selections.
The store is in a part of Columbus that gets a lot of foot traffic, Loar said, and the team frequently creates tailored window displays that face the street. With customers unable to stop in and browse, they've added QR codes to the displays, so people going by can still shop. The same displays are also re-created virtually. Loar noted that it has "definitely been a challenge," with online orders taking up to three times as much effort as in-person handselling.
Loar reported the store has had to limit staff to the bare minimum while it's closed to the public. Still, they remain positive and are looking forward to being able to connect in person with customers again.
Loar and his team have not hosted any online events, instead concentrating on maintaining a high level of service for online customers. They have, however, participated in a Zoom happy hour hosted by a local writers' group, and have promoted some authors' online events.
Since the store's closure on March 14, Loar said, it's been "absolutely amazing" to see how supportive both readers and authors have been. The store has been embraced by local, regional and national authors, and has seen an increase in new customers while enhancing its e-commerce capabilities.
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In Hoboken, N.J., Little City Books is closed to the public. Co-owner Donna Garban reported that while the store--which turned five years old this past Saturday--is offering curbside pick-up on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, the vast majority of their work involves processing orders for shipping. She said she and her team are now "basically mail-order clerks," and noted that it seems they're working about twice as hard to make 30% of the revenue.
Almost all of the bookstore's 20 part-time staff members have been furloughed, although some are working limited hours each week doing things like processing orders. Garban and her team are staying in touch with them through Zoom and via e-mail. For the most part they've been applying for unemployment, but success has been spotty on that front.
The store received some money from the second round of the PPP, Garban continued, but it was only about 20% of what she'd asked for. She said the initial application process and the documentation process were both pretty easy, but a filing error caused her to miss the first round. She is hoping to get a staffer back on payroll to start preparing returns for when the post office reopens.
Little City Books has not hosted virtual events so far, but Garban and her team will be hosting one next Thursday with author Peggy Rowe and her son Mike Rowe. The event will celebrate both Mother's Day and the launch of Peggy Rowe's book About Your Father (And Other Celebrities I Have Known).
A pleasant surprise, Garban said, was finding out the store was actually better positioned to handle the transition to online sales and web orders than she and her team might have expected. She added that her customers have been very supportive of the store, and for the most part people seem to be "really trying to be nice to each other."
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Barb Minett, co-founder of The Bookshelf in Geulph, Ontario, which features a bookstore, bar and movie theater, reported that her store has been closed since March 15. Immediately, she and her team tried to ramp up online sales by offering free delivery within Guleph, along with phone orders and curbside pick-up.
Just last week, the bookstore began offering same-day delivery of Organized Crime wines to people in the Guelph community. As an added bonus, complimentary movie popcorn is included with wine orders. Since the deliveries began on April 30, Minett said, they've "sold a huge number of bottles of wine."
Since the store closed about a month and a half ago, Minett continued, most of the work has been handled by herself; her two children, Ben and Hannah (who now own the bookstore); Ben's wife, Stephanie; and another employee. Minett's partner, a retired surgeon, has also joined the bookstore's "legion" of delivery people. Some of the store's staff who are out of work, she added, are receiving C$2,000 (about US$1,400) per month, and "are a bit fearful of catching the virus."
The Bookshelf applied for a US$40,000 (about US$28,000) interest-free loan, which Minett said "appeared in our bank account almost immediately." Wages are also being subsidized, with the government paying 75% of the store's payroll for March, April, May and June.
As for virtual events, Minett said the store will be partnering with the Eden Mills Writers' Festival, and will be the online bookseller for an event with Emily St. John Mandel on June 25.
On the subject of pleasant surprises, Minett explained that before starting delivery, they assumed that most of the store's clientele were located in Guelph's downtown. But in the last month and a half, they've delivered to "every nook and cranny of Guelph," and shipping many orders outside of town. At the same time, it's been nice to see people using the store's website for more than looking up movies, and Minett and her team have been expanding the site's capabilities.
"We are so grateful for the support of our community," Minett said. "There is so much love and encouragement on Facebook and Twitter. It makes it all worth it."