Does anyone own a Christian Book Store?

[homemaker66]

I am doing a survery in the town where I want to open the store so far everyone has said yes they would like to see a store come in the town. I found a space that will be 350.00 per month with everything included even trash, snow is included. Still thinking and praying to see what is going to happen. I want to thank everyone who gave their opinion. Blessings

[Judi Dial]

The building:

Make sure you have plenty of accessible parking. People won't come if the weather is bad and they have to walk outside. Also, check to see if you can see your display windows CLEARLY from the street. Make sure you have a loading area. Make sure you have enough wall space. Find out from the Fire Marshall how high your shelving can be/ what kind of fire alarm system you'd have to have and how big your aisles have to be. Figure out how much back room space you'd have AND what it will cost you a month.

How many linear feet of bookshelving can you get in the place (after you figure your back room/talk to the Fire Marshall) approximately? Draw a plan.

Look at the floors, are they carpeted? Stained? Wood? Need refinishing? Are they level? Really level? (Books fall off of cases when the floors aren't level.)

Are you responsible for leasehold improvements?

Ask the landlord for a copy of his lease agreement and take it to your lawyer and/or a legal aid and find out if there's any "gotchas" in there you don't know about. Find out how old the heating plant is. Is there air conditioning?

If your location isn't good, no matter how much people say they want your store, they won't come. Location is more than 1/2 the reason most bookstores make it or fail. A cheap space isn't necessarily a great one. But with the economy the way it is, it may be. . .

How long has the space been empty? What was there before? Do people actually shop in that area? Ask your local Chamber of Commerce if they have any info that can help.


Books/The Business
If your books are short discount/unreturnable (I think Bibles are, others I'm not sure) how many units do you have to sell to pay the bills and/or make a profit? (Standard discount when I started in the book business was 40%, a short discount book was 20% or less. Trade books are usually returnable, some books (textbooks and expensive, dated refererences typically and others) are NOT.

Short discount books used to be indicated in Books in Print by a small x following the price.

You need to know if you can return books, or if you strip them and return the covers (usually only mass market (rack sized) paperbacks).

Are you going to carry magazines? Do you have a local ID (independent distributor), if so, you may or may not be able to do busines with them. One local ID I knew would pull books specifically for a store, the other would give ythe store what they wanted to period. Depending on the ID, as a specialty store, it may not pay for you to do business with them.

If you open an account with a distributor, how much do you have to order per month?


All of my data is out of date. I haven't worried about this stuff in > 15 years, before the net, before e books, before a lot of changes happened.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Judi

[homemaker66]

Judi thank you so much for all of the great information. There is a lot to think about before we make any kind of steps. Also there is one more big step that is holding me back is that we are empty nesters and my DH works on the road a lot and we would like for me to go with him instead of staying home alone all week. With the business I will be married to it instead to my DH. My family comes first instead of work and material things. We are going to keep praying. Once again thank you to everyone.

[Judi Dial]

If you want to go with him, why not organize it as a "party" instead of a full-time business? Have book parties once a month or every 6 weeks. Check with your home owner's to see if this can be covered.

Or, you could set up a regular meeting at your local library, like a reading group, and arrange to sell the books too. That way you could do all of it, go with your hubby, provide the books to your community, AND not be married to a business rather than your family.

If he stops being on the road and/or the minibusiness merits it, you could open a shop in a mini mall or an antique booth or if it's a real success, then hire a part-time employee.

There's all sorts of options that didn't exist before.

Talk to the owners of your local antique co-ops and see if they'd be willing to let you sell new, rather than used books. If so? Start a book booth. You won't have to worry about insurance, (although you CAN buy renter's insurance to cover your stock.), location, getting a credit card machine etc. to start with.

If your state has sales tax, make sure you sign up with the revenue department and pay your taxes, also check to see if your town requires a business license. You'll need your resale number (from the revenue department) and/or license to open a wholesale account with a wholesaler or distributor, also a business checking account too.

Judi

[homemaker66]

Everyone has given lots of great ideas. We will consider everything before we make any kind of moves. Thank you for all of the help.

[crafty73]

If the nearest book store is an hour away, why not open a regular book store that carries books on a variety of topics, including a christian/religious section? That way you could appeal to a larger clientele base. If a book store sold only one genre of writing, you limit your earning potentional by limiting your customers base. Unless perhaps you incorporated another aspect, like a tea house/coffee shop/bookstore combo that tends to be popular in larger cities. If I were going to invest in invetory, rental of space, business license, insurance etc etc all all the other costs involved in opening up a business, I would not want to stictly limit myself to a narrow customer base but would rather have a generalized approach in this case that could appeal to a much broader range of interests while including a sections for christian and other religious/spiritual texts. I'd make sure to have a frugal book section too

But if a strictly christian book store is what you have your heart set on, maybe incorporate other things into your stock as well, like angel statues/decorations, xtrian jewelry (crosses, medals of saints etc) and that sort of thing to appeal to a larger christian customer base - not everyone is into books - but they might like to buy a special st. christopher medallion etc Just a thought.

Good luck with it

[mek42]

This is coming from someone who doesn't usually identify himself as Christian.

I recently wanted to find myself a pocket-sized Bible with all the books (including the Apocryphal and Deuterocanonical books). I visited a few Christian bookstores within my commute range. There was one in particular which, to me, appeared to sub-specialize in the fundamentalist / evangelical side of Christianity. I felt less welcome there than the other one I had visited.

If your area has no such store, perhaps you should try to accommodate customers from any of the various Christian sects present in your town. This will enable your business to garner a wider customer base.

Also, after you're up and running for a while, consider renting some after hours space to like minded groups, host an ecumenical Bible study or host a Dave Ramsey class. These sorts of activities should prove to be free or inexpensive advertising. Speaking of Dave Ramsey, maybe you want to pre-order his new business book shipping in September - "Entre-Leadership" or something like that.

Have you thought about what sort of business entity structure you want to use? I strongly urge some sort of structure that protects your personal assets, such as a C corporation or LLC. The last thing you want is to lose your personal house because someone tripped in your store and found a better lawyer than you. Have you looked into the insurance you'll want to carry? Do you have an attorney on your business team?