John Hendricks, owner of the Book Rack in Cape Girardeau, Mo., spoke with the Southeast Missourian about the bookstore's legacy and being a bookseller in challenging times. He has run the business, which was started by his parents in 1977 as a used bookshop, since 1997.
"My late father, Jack Hendricks, had read somewhere about 'The Book Rack' in Memphis, so mom and dad drove down there and checked it out," eventually buying a franchise for Cape Girardeau, John Hendricks noted.
The original shop focused on what Hendricks described as "cheap, bargain basement-type books," but he soon developed a larger vision once he took over the store. "I went to every used bookstore I could in the Midwest and saw their best practices. I realized the stores were all essentially hobbies for their owners, but I wanted this to be my full-time moneymaking job--so I tried to figure out the best way to make that happen."
Computerizing his inventory was an important early step, Hendricks recalled. "Every used bookstore you ever went into, if you asked the guy at the counter for a James Patterson book, he'd more than likely reply, 'Well, I think they're over there.' A customer would go over to the shelf area at which the clerk pointed and would have to look and look and look for a single title among thousands of books. Effectively, a customer was on his own. That's not efficient in terms of making money because the customer showed up on a lunch break and has to get back to work. He wants to get in and out and doesn't have time to do extensive browsing. If he's doing a lot of looking, he isn't buying.... My vision was then and is now getting people to buy lots of books."
Around 2010, he began transitioning the store from a sole focus on used books to what he calls "used, new and rare" titles. "Walmart used to sell 10% of all the books available for sale in America but today (the retailer) has a much narrower focus, selling what I call 'greatest hits' books. I saw a market develop to sell new books that were more 'odds-and-ends.' "
Adjusting to the pandemic has been the most recent challenge. "During Covid, we would do curbside service and bring books out to their cars," Hendricks said, adding that the pandemic prompted him to increase his new book inventory. "People, I noticed, were migrating to us rather than automatically going to Barnes & Noble or Amazon because we actually know the books. We're not just order takers."