In Columbia, Mo., Skylark Bookshop is still offering shopping by appointment, and owner Alex George and his team have started allowing people without appointments to browse if there are no other customers in the store, or if those customers agree. Masks are still required, as is hand sanitizer, and all handled books are quarantined for 72 hours.
George noted that appointments have become increasingly popular and visitors have "cheerfully complied" with the store's requirements. Most, he added, have been very grateful that the store is doing so much to keep people safe. When the weather has been good, George and his team have been keeping the store door open with a chain across it, which allows them to control entry. The team frequently asks customers to come back in five or ten minutes, and "almost everyone does."
Columbia is a university town, which George said has both "perils and benefits." The start of the term saw a significant rise in new Covid cases, which caused a "degree of panic among locals" but also led to wider appreciation of the store's precautions. Things appear to be under control now, George continued, and "we're enjoying welcoming new students in to discover the store."
Prior to the pandemic, Skylark Bookshop had never planned on having an IndieCommerce site, but the pandemic "forced our hand." The store is now shipping books across the country, and George hopes that trend will increase.
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| Skylark's skyku bookmarks | |
In July the store began a series of weekly virtual author talks, which the staff has named "Must Read TV." While it's been a ton of work, he said, it's been "huge fun." They've hosted some fantastic authors, and attendance has been great, though they are still working on ways to translate these events into meaningful sales. One thing they've started doing is asking participating authors to compose a haiku, which the store then turns into limited-edition bookmarks that are signed and numbered. The store then includes the bookmarks with purchases of that author's books, on a first-come, first-served basis. They're called Skyku, and customers have loved them.
The Skylark team has yet to "vigorously" encourage customers to start holiday shopping early, but there have been many internal conversations about it. George said they've approached holiday ordering this year "with a fair degree of caution," with the store "going in hard" on some of the more obvious titles. At the same time, they're "engaging deeply" with their in-store blacklist and figuring out how to present existing stock to tempt holiday buyers. Normally, the store significantly increases its sideline inventory for the holidays, but Skylark won't be doing that this year.
George and his booksellers are also looking for other ways to entice customers, including creating a special holiday version of their subscription program, which would help people buy "one-off gifts for everyone on this list."
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Mara Panich-Crouch, manager of Fact & Fiction Bookstore in Missoula, Mont., reported that the store reopened for browsing in June with limited occupancy and a variety of other safety measures in place. Montana was one of the first states in the country to allow non-essential retailers to reopen after mandatory shutdowns, but Panich-Crouch and her team decided to wait, and did curbside pickup only between April and June.
As the store is fairly small, Panich-Crouch noted, adopting new safety measures has not been a huge adjustment. She added that Missoula and the state government issued mask mandates fairly early on, and they continue to be in place. Missoula is a "mostly progressive town," especially the downtown area in which the store is located, so she and her team have experienced only a few quiet grumblings about masks. The vast majority of customers have been supportive and appreciative of the store's safety measures. (Concerning tensions about masks in another Montana town, nearby Hamilton, see story below.)
The bright spot amid all this, she continued, has been the increased traffic to the store's website. While that was initially overwhelming, as the store had to reorganize its "inefficient" online orders process, it has led to a steady stream of online orders that continued even after the store reopened its doors. Fact & Fiction plans to continue encouraging customers near and far to use the website.
Panich-Crouch said the store has approached holiday ordering with "cautious optimism" this year. They are working to stock up on titles they think will be huge, and they've started a push for early holiday shopping. --Alex Mutter