On the first day of the CALIBA Fall Fest in Pasadena, Calif., booksellers convened to discuss inventory management tips. Jessica Hahl, children's buyer at Books Inc., which has 11 locations in Northern California; Sean Moor, manager of the Book Jewel in Los Angeles, Calif.; and Seth Marko, co-owner of the Book Catapult in San Diego, Calif., made up the panel.
For frontlist buying, Marko said he relied heavily on the sales data available in Edelweiss. New titles on Edelweiss feature comp titles added by publishers and sales reps, and when buying Marko looks at how a given title's comps fared at his store in hardcover and paperback. When Hahl noted that sometimes publisher comps can feel "very aspirational," Marko answered that comps supplied by sales reps are denoted with a star, and those can be more realistic than the comps included by the publishers themselves.
Marko explained that sales data can be very helpful when deciding whether to create new inventory sections, adding that the Book Catapult recently created a dedicated horror section. Prior to that, horror titles had been mixed in sci-fi and fantasy, and thanks to sales data, Marko and the Book Catapult team could see that horror was selling well enough to warrant its own section. Currently, the team is having a similar conversation about possibly breaking out romance into its own section.
Once Marko brings in a book, he tries to "give everything 90 days," especially fiction. A major new release might start out in a window display before being moved to the hardback fiction table. After a couple months on a display table, a book will be moved into the general fiction, and at that point, Marko starts to think about "culling things a little." He pointed out that he is stricter with fiction than with other categories. Art and photography books, which can be quite heavy, are rarely returned, and cookbooks "will stay forever."
Moor remarked that when he first started his career as a bookseller, he wanted to make the bookstore look "exactly like the one I wanted to walk into." He learned very quickly that to find success, he had to make it look like the bookstore the community wanted. Over the years he has tried to "relinquish control as much as possible" by listening to his store's customers, his sales reps, and his frontline booksellers. He encourages booksellers to make ordering suggestions, which he then reviews, and he said he often relies on the demand function available through Ingram, especially if it's a title with which he's not personally familiar.
The Book Jewel sells new and used titles, and Moor said the store uses Basel because it makes it easier to keep track of both. The store created custom stickers to differentiate between used and new copies of the same title, which can be priced differently, and they include information like cost of goods and when the used book arrived in-store. When it comes to culling a section, the team usually waits until they "can't squeeze any more books in it." For used books, which frequently come to the store as donations or through store credit, there isn't much money invested in each title, and the team doesn't have a problem "donating the rejects." Trade paperbacks are "always the preference" when it comes to used copies, though the store might hold on to a first edition hardcover.
When buying frontlist, Moor said he buys very sparingly, and even for bestsellers rarely buys more than 5-10 at a time. His attitude toward most titles is "prove it to me," and he tries to limit returns as much as possible.
Hahl reported that when buying children's titles, she looks in detail at how an upcoming release's comp titles have performed across Books Inc.'s various locations, and whether sales hit at release or two months after. In general she tries to rely as much as possible on data, because with children's books, "everything is cute." It can be difficult to say no to a title if it has a puppy on the cover, but all the same, children's buyers need to be "cutthroat about it" and make sure titles earn their space on a shelf.
She also keeps track of things like how much she's buying from each publisher and how many titles of a particular category she's buying, such as picture books or graphic novels. It helps with budgeting, and more data means a better ability to predict future trends. She encouraged booksellers to report sales to ABACUS and the New York Times bestseller list; once reported, she explained, booksellers can still access those numbers. She further advised buyers to educate their frontline booksellers about things like turn rates for specific sections and categories. It can help give them specific goals to pursue rather than simply "sell more."
Children's books, Hahl added, can have a slightly longer tail than adult titles, and aside from a few exceptions, most kids' bestsellers will be backlist. Some children's books, especially picture books, can "require a little more square footage," which necessitates being very selective. Buyers should also account for the fact that there are evergreen titles that eventually someone will be looking for. She said: "You have to keep Blueberries for Sal or Where the Wild Things Are around." --Alex Mutter
