Let's Play Books, Emmaus, Pa., will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its grand opening this weekend, and owner Kirsten Hess told LehighValleyNews.com that although the shop is facing challenges and rumors have spread it might be closing, she is actually considering several options for the 244 Main St. location.
"We are not closing--we are exploring options," she said, adding that she will ask the community what shape its Emmaus location should take and how best to move forward, with options that include staying as it is, focusing on certain efforts, or finding a new location.
"I think the bottom line is post-Covid, in the new world of point-and-click and immediate gratification, that we have to determine what physical spaces matter," Hess noted. "And I have to make this matter, otherwise there's no point in having a retail rent. It just doesn't make any sense at all."
She also owns sister store The End: A Bookstore, which opened last year in Allentown. While Let's Play Books is seeing less success as a standard retail operation, Hess has every intention of figuring out how best to support the location going forward: "It's just been eye-opening... that The End is becoming so successful, that it makes us question what should we be doing with Let's Play Books. That's all--that's a good problem.... Because the world constantly changes and we need to stay relevant and we need to figure out how to sustain ourselves. And that is what good business does."
While business as a whole was up 31% in sales between the two locations and online operation, the majority of the gain was in online sales and at The End, with about 78% of customers from Let's Play Books now choosing the new location as their primary store, something Hess said "has completely thrown us."
"I'm exploring a lot of options," she said. "Everything from creating a nonprofit [to run the Lehigh Valley Book Festival], to opening a lending library and an after-school location, to an art center. There's so many options, but I want community input to see what we kind of need and what people may value because what I do know is that the three floors of that building is challenging to run as a retail store." She added that a decision about the future of Let's Play Books would be made in early May at the earliest, following community conversations.
In an update posted on the store's Facebook page Wednesday, Hess offered further clarification: "This weekend's festivities include an open house forum, including q&a with our readers about the FUTURE of LPB! We have many ideas! Let's Play Books Bookstore has lost a lot of our own customers to our second store, The End: a bookstore. It is more convenient for so many of our readers. So, we have to rethink!
"Maybe we only have weekend retail hours, perhaps the location becomes a non-profit, a relocation (IN EMMAUS) to a more accessible shop is an idea too. 3 floors with 9 rooms is hard to manage--and CLEAN!! The only reason we've made it this far is because we are constantly changing, it is truly the only constant. It makes good business sense to make changes as changes need to be made! This is all GOOD news."