Larry Portzline told me that a typical 50-person tour coming from Harrisburg to Greenwich Village seemed to generate $2500 in purchases by the group -- or, about $50 per person, spread over all the bookstores. This would seem to imply a rather small impact on most of the bookstores. (I'll bet more than half the sales went to just five or six of the bookstores out of the 22 on the bookstore map.)
I would say that $50 in sales, per person, is quite low for people who've elected to go on a special shopping daytrip. (And I'll bet that 20% of the riders spent 80% of the $2500.)
I think that it's not really my objective to get casual book-buyers to bop from bookstore to bookstore just observing these quaint stores, without most of these customers actually seriously buying many books.
And I definitely don't want to have non-book-buying people buying my bus-tickets just because it gives them an excuse for a fun daytrip to Greenwich Village -- people who don't intend to really visit the bookstores!
I would think that two-day or multi-day programs would sort more effectively for heavy book-buyers, and would tend to reduce casual ridership.
Similarly, the most coveted customers for any bookstore are those who are willing and able to spend some serious money. This would also tend to argue for longer BiblioExpeditions programs -- which would be more expensive for the customers. That is: people who can afford to buy a higher-priced ticket for this special trip -- which would include an overnight at a Country Inn in Vermont or at the Library Hotel in NYC, plus a couple of nice meals -- are people who can afford to spend much more than $50 on books during such a special trip
Whereas the inexpensive daytrip ticket seems to cater specifically to people who regard $100 as a large amount of money for the bus-ticket, yielding a bus-ful of people who think $50 is a lot to spend on books in one day.
All of which leads me to think that I want to START this company with programs that cost several hundred dollars per ticket.
The bus then becomes not one of those 50-seaters, but rather the more posh 27-seater. The imagined riders become not your mainstream book-lover types, but rather, very serious book-buyers, collectors -- fanatics, even.
The activities en route, the extra stops, then are associated with this type of clientele (perhaps rare book dealers do presentations).
This strategy would mean better sales for the target bookstores, and would make my task the selling of a smaller number of more expensive program-tickets. (College alumni associations seem to be possible target markets??)
I'm not saying that I won't aim to develop a large-scale daytrip program for a mainstream population. Just that this "mass-market" approach shouldn't be my point of entry into this business. I think. Today.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi Andy,
In my experience (as a bibliophile, not as a bookseller), a lot of booklovers will buy books with their last remaining precious pennies, but will not spend on much else in life.
Since the danger of folks hopping aboard an inexpensive way to go see New York is real, and since you want to get the customers who will both buy books and spend on the actual trip itself, those added-value bits you're looking at are absolutely key. You want to offer them book-related carrots that they just can't get ahold of on their own, such as exclusive tours of the Library and/or a publishing house, a stay at the Library Hotel, "backrooms at the Strand", whatever.
I'd sure pay a lot for that kind of thing.
The participating bookstores themselves want to be sure to grab these visitors by their email addresses, in order to work on them once they're back in the safety of their own homes, yet only a few clicks away from even more purchases at their new favorite bookshops.
Fascinating following your intricate planning - wish I could get over there to help lead some of these trips!
Best,
Margaret
Andy,
The $50-per-person figure was actually more like a rock-bottom minimum.
Think of it this way: From my experience, the average bookstore tourist buys new, used, and deep-discounted books. So let's say the prices look like this -- new book, $25; used book, $12; deep-discounted book, $3. This gives us an average book price of about $13. (These figures are rough, of course, but I think it gives a fairly accurate view despite all the variables -- such as people who ONLY buy used books, etc.)
On my trips, the average person buys 5 or 6 books, so let's say 5.5. That's about $72 per person. Multiply this by 50 people on a bus and you get about $3,600.
You're right that when this is spread out over 20 or more stores, the financial impact for individual booksellers isn't that much (every little bit helps, though). You're also right to assume that a fraction of the bookstores get the majority of our business, so the figures are actually spread over a smaller number of booksellers.
Then there are trips like the one I led to West Chester, PA, where just two bookstores were part of the itinerary. At Baldwin's Book Barn, a used bookstore that was having a 50 percent off sale on the day we went, our group of about 50 people spent $1,800 on books (which would have been $3,600 on a non-sale day). Then, at Chester County Books and Music, our group spent another $3,000 primarily on new books. So we spent about $4,800 between two bookstores that day. Which pleased the owners a great deal, as you can imagine.
So, the West Chester trip alone leads me to believe that my figures for the other trips -- about $3,600 -- might actually be pretty conservative. Maybe it's somewhere between $3,600 and $4,800. Maybe it's more.
The surveys I've taken at the end of each trip have always asked how many stores our participants visited and how many books they bought, but never asked about specific prices or specific stores. I'd like to gather more detailed information in the future. I think it would be beneficial.
Just some thoughts for you to kick around.
-- Larry
Hi Larry - I was very excited to come across this site last week, but only now do I have some time to contribute.
Firstly, Nicki and I wish you every success with this venture from over in the UK. It's pretty exciting to see an innovator such as yourself try to make bookstore tourism pay. Good luck.
Having read through all the posts to date, I think that a main worry would be from the departure bookstores (you've already alluded to this), who may fret about helping send some of their best customers on a trip to spend precious budget that might otehrwise have been spent in their own store.
However...in our (brief) experience at Mostly Books, on the (thus far rare) occasions when we have referred people to other bookshops in the UK, the goodwill engendered seems to make up for any short-term business loss. And in any case, the whole point with indies is that the stock of books is often different, it's not as if one branch of Waterstones is sending a group to another branch.
Having casual/non-buyers along for the ride is a risk - but, you may need a few of these tagging along to make the tour feasible/viable. Sounds like there's going to be an optimum balance in any tour (as you already said, 20% are probably buying 80% of the books) but those others may bring other value to the tour, and make it more enjoyable/successful for everyone.
It may be that a departure bookstore has the chance to 'sell' a tour package to its customers, and bags a commission. This is just a twist on your sponsorship idea I guess.
As far as the destination bookstores are concerned, having a whole halo of value-added experiences around the tour (literary lunches/dinners at good, nearby restaurants, author events, behind-the-scenes tours, 'closed' bookshop sessions) may help to up the overall value (and cost) of the tour, providing a bigger cake to divvy up amongst both departure and destination stores.
Sorry - meandered around a bit there, but I wanted to stick in my 2 pence at this early stage!
Post a Comment