The Christian Bookshops Blog

Over the last few weeks we’ve been having a lively discussion about Kingsway’s practice of offering “discounts” at kingswayshop.com by comparing their own prices to their own RRPs, typified in the following screenshot of the new Very Best of Graham Kendrick album:
Read on and cast your vote: Poll 1: Is Kingsway’s practice of comparing their own prices to their own RRPs in order to present things at a discount fair? and Poll 2: Is a meeting in London on July 21st the best way forward for this discussion?

A message via facebook from Paul Barton and Angela Curror:

Hello to all of you, who were on the Wesley Owen facebook friends list.

Thank you so much for your all of your prayers and support — many of the obstacles have now been removed and Living Oasis Croydon really is on its way at last!

Nationwide Christian Trust have managed to secure an offer on 145-147 North End (which used to be Wesley Owen), which has been accepted and is currently in the hands of the solicitors. Please continue to pray that this will go smoothly with no further hitches.

It has been suggested that this unit will be the first Living Oasis store to fill the vision. (Details can be found at livingoasis.co.uk)

It is thought that the alterations, refitting and re-stocking the shop, including the coffee shop area, will take approximately 4-6 weeks…..as a rough estimate, from receiving the keys. Please pray for wisdom and skill for those making decisions, drawing up the plans and carrying out the necessary work.

The manager, Paul Barton, can be contacted by email at croydon AT livingoasis.co.uk — if you have any ideas for what the shop could stock, or how the shop could better serve you or your Church, please let him know.

Nationwide Christian Trust are investing a lot of money into this and would appreciate any help from local Churches who believe in their vision and have a heart for having a community base within the shop. If you wish to contribute financially to this project please do contact Paul. Thank you very much.

May God continue to bless your ministry and we look forward to meeting you in the new Living Oasis shop.

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My thanks to John Paculabo of Kingsway for taking time out of his busy schedule to respond to some of the concerns that have been raised in recent posts here and in the letters section of Christian Marketplace over the last three issues (April | May | June).

Since John’s comment is fairly long, I’ll take it section by section:

Dear Bloggers,

I have been cautious with regards to contributing to this site again, as some of the comments I have seen here over recent months have been questionable to say the least. That Phil Groom feels that for the sake of transparency it is acceptable to create a blog that has no editorial checks is in my view dangerous as it allows those who wish to simply vent, name call, and at times pour abuse on individuals a free platform to do so with impunity.

I realize that Kingsway is a significant provider and throughout our history have never wanted to be offensive, repugnant, or competitive with a trade that we hope we have faithfully served for over 50 years. It is with dismay that I see on parts of the blog comments such as ‘Kingsway is a bully’, and quotes such as ‘hopefully Kingsway have not sunken that low yet’  and ‘As blatantly immoral as Kingsway’ both by Phil Groom suggesting that what we do is immoral and implying while we may have sunk low, not that low at least not Yet!

It appears to me that there are times when this blog serves the purpose of telling folks what to be afraid of, and fingering who’s to blame for it, which in turn opens the floodgates for suggestions as to what the real intentions may be, I have to say that speculation, accusation and inflammatory remarks are seldom helpful.

John, I’m glad that you overcame your reluctance and have seen fit to engage with us in open conversation. I’m not sure where you got the idea that this blog has no editorial checks, however: please be assured that it is checked and monitored quite rigorously and inappropriate comments are moderated and either countered or removed as necessary. In particular, I do not provide a platform for contributors “to simply vent, name call, and at times pour abuse on individuals” (and, incidentally, I find it offensive that you choose to make such an allegation). I invite you to read my Comments Policy for clarification.

I am encouraged by your dismay to learn that some of your customers perceive Kingsway to be a bully, and I hope that you will take the opportunity to discuss things with your staff to find out what has caused this perception and to address it. I know from private conversation as well as from comments left here that some of your customers fear the consequences of daring to speak out about what they regard as your inequitable business practices. Part of my aim with this blog is to provide a venue where people can speak freely, without intimidation or fear of reprisals, hence my decision to allow pseudonymous comments.

So, John, this blog does not exist to facilitate fear but to offer freedom, it does not exist to lay blame or to open those floodgates you fear but to open the door to informed dialogue — and I have to say that whilst I very much welcome your participation, I find your speculations about my intentions and your running this forum down singularly unhelpful.

I am more than willing to address the issues raised in the blog in recent weeks with regards to Kingsway, pricing, internet etc, and I am more than willing to share with you our aspirations and many other issues and their possible impact including a generation that expects; no demands that music is free!

However I am not willing to commit discussion to a blog where those with any axe to grind can snipe from the cover of their office, but face to face is different. I am more than happy to meet in London or anywhere else for that matter at a suitable location, and with an independent chairman. (Board meetings and Charity work means that I would not be available until the middle of July), so let’s set a date of Wednesday July 21st at 11am, venue to be decided.

I am delighted that you are willing to address the issues and I look forward to learning more of your aspirations — and I once again extend my invitation to you to contribute a guest post outlining your hopes and dreams and their possible impact. As a point of correction, however, whilst there may be some who expect music to be free, the vast majority (especially in our sector of the marketplace) still expect to pay for it: witness the success of Apple’s iTunes store, amongst others. Musicians and singers deserve to be paid and let us not take any steps to undermine their work!

To reiterate: this blog does not exist for “those with any axe to grind [to] snipe from the cover of their office” — and any who have attempted to highjack it for such purposes have been politely but firmly rebuffed, and will continue to receive short shrift.

Your offer of a face to face meeting is commendable and appreciated: thank you. The problem with that, however, has been highlighted by Melanie Carroll…

Thanks for your response but I am not able to make London on the 21st July, making London is generally very difficult due to both cost & time but on days other than monday or tuesday it is pretty much an impossibility due to staffing, and getting there & to a venue by 11am next to impossible too – however I would be more than happy to meet with you in Lincoln.

… and as Melanie has also pointed out, you have a team of on the road reps. May I suggest that you authorise and empower them to address the concerns raised? Whilst is would be wonderful if you could visit every shop yourself in person, your situation is a bit like that of Moses, who wore himself out with attempting to deal with all the people’s problems by himself: I’m sure you’re familiar with the story.

The only statement I am willing to make on this blog is that the internet exists, there is a dedicated community of people, some presumably who live miles from a Christian bookshop who either choose to, or have no alternative but to purchase a wide range of resources this way.

The general perception is that the internet is cheaper we’re not first into this market, we’ve not pioneered it, we’ve not driven prices down, neither are we the lowest price, but like it or not the expectation is that it is cheaper, that’s why ALL OF US from time to time use it for holidays, shopping, air fares etc instead of those local retailers who can supply those services.

We do not wish to take business from Christian bookshops; we’ve worked with the trade for many decades have many friends, and there are many who support us.

In the midst of the most difficult transition in our history we are still trying to introduce a partnership scheme with no risk to the trade.  There are so many reasons why we want a healthy trade, but we don’t control the buying habits of the public, or where and how they want to purchase. Our on-line prices are directed toward the ON-LINE community, the community that already exists and purchase on-line.

Have we made mistakes in this area ….probably, but not purposefully or maliciously, and none of our on-line advertising is intended to nor do we want to take business from Christian stores, it is targeted as I have said instead at those who shop this way already, and are buying resources from a number of established on-line suppliers.

John, I’m sorry to have to point out what should be blindingly obvious, but there is no separate online shopping community. The people who shop in bricks and mortar outlets are the very same people who shop online — “all of us”, as you yourself point out — and your online shop is in no way directed or targeted towards a separate online community.

So whilst you may say that you “do not wish to take business from Christian bookshops” the simple fact remains that you are doing so: your “discounting” of your own prices against your own RRPs — which I do regard as an immoral practice, especially when you do this to new titles that have never been on sale at your so-called RRPs — is undermining our trade and taking away those who would have been our customers. As per Michael Gibson’s letter in June’s Christian Marketplace: actions speak louder than words.

I am pleased that you acknowledge the possibility of having made mistakes in this area: may I encourage you to take this opportunity to rectify them?

You rightly say that the “general perception is that the internet is cheaper” and point out that you did not pioneer this — but do you really need to feed that perception? My perception — which I think you’ll find is shared by many in this trade of ours — is that you are creating artificially inflated RRPs in order to offer apparent discounts. That may not be your intention — but it is the impression you are giving.

I’ll refrain from commenting on your removal of stock from STL’s warehouse last year: that’s part of another discussion, which I’m happy to address separately if others wish to pursue it further.

Once again, then, John: I invite you to contribute a guest post outlining your vision, your goals and ambitions, here, in a venue that is open to all, regardless of geographic location and time of day. If you prefer to talk rather than write, please feel free to record a video and I’ll gladly post that.

Thank you.

• All posts tagged ‘Kingsway’

IVP e-Bookmark May 2010

IVP’s latest trade bulletin, e-Bookmark, introduces their updated trade partnership scheme, launched at the Christian Resources Together Retailers and Suppliers Retreat earlier this month, along with details of several new promotions and new/forthcoming titles.

The buzzwords for the new scheme are service, promotion and commitment, and from my perspective as a retailer I have to say that (apart from a brief hiccup back in 2007/08) there’s never been any doubt about IVP’s ability to deliver in all three areas.

Like many other publishers, IVP do run their own online shop — but unlike Kingsway, IVP don’t undermine their retail partners by selling below their own RRP, and any promotions they run online are also available to retailers, fully supported by a range of POS materials: flyers, posters and shelf-talkers, for instance.

IVP Partnership - download the flyer (pdf, 3.4MB)

With a growing portfolio of publishers alongside their own titles, no minimum order requirement, free carriage on all shipments and next-day delivery on orders placed before 12 noon, IVP — as I’ve said before — provide a vital link in the evangelical supply chain.

There’s definite room for improvement, however, as IVP still do not provide an online stock check and ordering service and have yet to join batch.co.uk (@batch_services) for online invoice processing and payments.

My message to IVP, then, is thank you for all that you are doing to work together with us as retailers — we really are “stronger together – weaker apart.” But please don’t stop where you are now; and please remember there’s no need to reinvent the wheel by creating your own online trade ordering and/or payment services: just join Pubeasy.com and batch.co.uk.

If you’d like to see IVP on PubEasy and batch, please let them know.

• All posts tagged IVP | IVP on facebook

IVP’s partnership scheme is, of course, just one of several out there being offered by our many and various suppliers: Lion Hudson have their Alliance and Candle Scheme, Kingsway and Evangelical Press both run stockist schemes, and STL are currently fine-tuning their new retail partnership. If you could only sign up for one, which would it be, and why? And which, dare I ask, would you avoid — and why?

What’s the problem with Kingsway?

If you’re unfamiliar with the problems with Kingsway, see this post and its comments thread from last week: Kingsway, Cross Rhythms and the cost of Christian music: are retailers being priced out of the market?

If you think Kingsway’s practice of offering “discounts” by comparing their own prices to their own RRPs is immoral, please let them know too.

• All posts tagged Kingsway | Kingsway on facebook

Everything Christian

Everything Christian, the news, reviews and opinion portal launched by Ian Matthews in November last year, needs a new owner: could that be you? Ian explains:

Due to other work commitments I have been forced to put Everything Christian on hold at the moment, which is a shame as the feedback and traffic have been really encouraging. I do hope to get things up and running again soon, but I just do not have the time at the moment.

However …

If there is someone who is interested in working with me on this project – writing, persuading others to write, reviewing etc then I would be willing to offer the following:

• I will cover the costs of hosting the site for a further six months
• Will guarantee to contribute on a weekly basis
• Will share the project on a 50/50 basis with the right person.

Check out the contributor’s page for details of some of the people you could be working with, and if you’re interested — or know someone else who might be — contact ianjmatt via Google’s well known email service…

Breaking Through - No Frontiers Newsletter, May 2010 (pdf, 500kb)

Over the past few years, Jubilee Church Teesside have had many non-English speaking members and attenders. Not unlike Pentecost — people from all parts of the known world. In fact, today, Jubilee has over 15 different languages, and people from over 18 different nations! And this in a provincial town — I can’t image how exciting it could be in a major city centre.

Reading the Bible and Christian books is good — but not nearly as good as being able to read it in their own language. We have bought books and Bibles from No Frontiers for many years, and so the opportunity to get involved with No Frontiers at every level was something too good to miss. At the same time, we developed a company in Teesside called Open Door Trading — we distribute English Christian Books and Music and work closely with Newfrontiers — our main aim being to create profit to help house asylum seekers in Teesside and to give first time work to refugees. Jubilee Church currently houses 15 homeless failed asylum seekers through another charity I am involved with, Open Door North East, hence Open Door Trading!

And so, No Frontiers has helped us to share the gospel with people with different languages, and helped us disciple them in the early years in the UK. To date, No Frontiers has been supplying Bibles in over 160 languages, and good evangelistic material. We’ve already started sourcing other types of Christian Literature – Christian lifestyle, popular authors etc as well as good study books – and our intention is to look for worship resources, songbooks and CDs in other languages. I am constantly amazed at how little there is available and how difficult it is to find it! So we want to make it as easy as possible for church leaders and Christian bookshops to find the resources they need and are looking for.

Open Door Trading has been a real blessing to us. We have been able to reach out and help people from all sorts of places as they settle in the UK. Currently, we have Robel who is from Eritrea working for us. He is a computer expert and is studying in the UK to get the appropriate qualifications. Working with us actually helps him by taking some of the financial struggle out of the equation. Gere (also Eritrean) also worked with us – he’s a nanotechnologist – and left us to do research and a masters in the UK. We also employed a law student in the early days. She stayed with us for 4 years, again as we helped fund her university degree.

Open Door creates retail events at conferences around the UK. It has been a real privilege to take different refugees with us. They are able to participate at events they would normally not be able to attend, and come back full of what God can do and is doing.

Our hope is that we can create more employment, and more housing through what we do. No Frontiers helps us forward with this mission. I used to think that we should go to the nations to take the gospel – and we should. BUT – now the nations are in Teesside! And we can take the gospel to them on our own doorstep – and, importantly – give them the tools to be able to share the gospel in their own language. Not all will stay in the UK – not all ought to, perhaps. Some will go back and plant churches in their own country.

And so, I’ve come to a place where I don’t believe in single language churches any more. In fact, I can only see multi-language but biblical culture churches where peoples from every tongue and language can worship God in their own language, can understand the Word of God in their mother tongue, and share life with others from other language groups with common unity and vision!

And each one heard them speaking in their own language…

No Frontiers, the foreign language book and Bible suppliers previously distributed by Kingsway, have moved all their stock to a new warehouse in the north east of England, from where they are now operating in partnership with Open Door Trading, distributors for Newfrontiers.

Explaining the new partnership in the No Frontiers May newsletter, Paul Mogford, one of Open Door Trading’s directors, writes:

So what does Open Door Trading do? And how is it now involved with No Frontiers? Open Door has two real activities. One is that we pick, pack and ship Christian resources for Newfrontiers (a growing family of churches in the UK and abroad) from their retail website: www.newfrontierstogether.org (not to be confused with the ‘No Frontiers’ website which is www.nofrontiers.org). We also go to Christian events and create bookshops for the event, serving the event and the speakers that go there.

Open Door Trading will pick your orders from stock, pack it and ship it out to you, wherever you are in the world! We are also working with UK Christian bookshops to sell foreign language Christian books and Bibles in the UK. It is very fitting that Open Door Trading and No Frontiers work together; as a result of economic migrants and refugee / asylum seekers coming to the UK, there are now many languages being spoken in the UK.

The newsletter still gives Kingsway’s main contact details but the Kingsway distribution arrangement has in fact now ended and Allistair Graham, the No Frontiers sales person who was based at Kingsway’s Eastbourne offices, is now working from home. Paul’s introduction to the new partnership closes as follows:

We are so thrilled to now be a part of No Frontiers, and to be involved in its work. We are thankful to Kingsway for having supported such an excellent ministry, and we want to keep on developing No Frontiers so that more people can grow in Christ and experience the gospel in their own language.

Why so thrilled? Tomorrow, Paul explains a little more about the new Open Door Trading / No Frontiers partnership: watch this space!

In the meantime, if it’s foreign language books and Bibles your customers are looking for, look no further than nofrontiers.org — and don’t hesitate to request a poster:

No Frontiers - Posters for Booksellers

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Bookseller 21/5/2010, p.11 - Make changes or die, book industry told

In a no-holds-barred challenge to the UK book trade reported by Graeme Neill in the Bookseller — online on Monday and in yesterday’s print edition, pictured — Booksellers Association President Sharon Murray has called for greater co-operation between publishers and booksellers.

Speaking at the 2010 Book Industry Conference on Monday, Murray was addressing the challenge of increasing digitisation, the arrival of Apple’s iPad and concerns over the Google Settlement:

Sharon Murray said that publishers and retailers need to work together in order to safeguard both their businesses. While accepting many publishers cooperate with retailers, she added they need to “underpin not undermine” independent and high street bookshops.

She said: “Our current sales are funding the changes in your future business models. Don’t lock us out. We want the opportunity to trade in these new formats. Bookshops and booksellers are still your most significant route to market and retailing diversity is important to our future.”

Co-operation needs to work both ways, however, she warned, noting that we as booksellers need to play our part in backing publishers and authors:

We should support publishers and authors in keeping their businesses profitable and helping them to reach the widest consumer market. These challenges to intellectual property and rights-holding undermine us all equally.

• Read the full report: BA president warns of trade’s future “irrelevance”

I have a love-hate relationship with Amazon. I love the way they keep rising to every new challenge that the internet throws out — and, yes, like almost every other book lover on the planet, I love their low prices.

But I also hate what they’re doing to this trade of ours, drawing suppliers and customers alike down, down, down in ever decreasing circles: will the time come, I wonder, when, like a black hole sucking in everything in its orbit, the whole thing implodes? Not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but a singularity at the end of ecommerce? Or more prosaically, like used bathwater down the plughole to the ocean’s oblivion…

Amazon Offer - House Rules reduced from £7.99 to £4.99

This week, they sucked me in again: an irresistible offer of Jodi Picoult’s House Rules at half-price — except, as you can see from the screenshot, it wasn’t half the current £16.99 hardback price, it was almost half the forthcoming £7.99 paperback price. I clicked through… only to find — as you too will find if you succumb — the actual offer was £8.38, just under half the hardback price.

“What’s going on?” I asked them. “You’ve offered it to me for £4.99, but the online price is £8.38.”

Their first response came within 24 hours and was simply a stock reply as if mine were a generic stock enquiry, explaining that they sometimes run out of special offer items due to high levels of demand, yadda yadda yadda…

Being the awkward customer that I am, I contacted them again with a request to read and respond to my specific enquiry; and they did — again within 24 hours — with an apology and instructions on how to obtain the book at the emailed offer price. But then they went one better: rather than take off the difference, £3.39, they took off the £4.99, leaving me with only £3.39 to pay. That’s what I call customer service!!

As for what this has to do with us as booksellers and as Christian traders in particular: are not we the ones who should be setting the standards that other businesses aspire to? What, I find myself wondering, has gone so badly wrong with our trade — with, dare I say, the Church of which we are assuredly a part — that so often it’s the world that sets the standards that we must aspire to?

Our price £11.99 - RRP £14.99

What has gone so badly wrong with a company like Kingsway — a company that excels in so many other ways, whose employees are all, as Melanie has rightly pointed out, “wonderful people … friendly, polite, considerate and try[ing] to do the best they can…” — that its leaders/marketers seem to regard comparing their own so-called RRPs to their own actual selling prices as a reasonable business practice? In the case of brand new albums, such as the Very Best of Kendrick album, the so-called RRPs are prices that have never been charged anywhere, let alone by themselves — with nothing even to suggest that this is an introductory price: it is, quite simply, Kingsway’s “Our price” v/s Kingsway’s RRP.

STL say 'Tell Us What You Think!'

On a more hopeful note, however, the new STL seem determined not only to offer us the best possible customer service but have also invited us to help them work out exactly what standards they should be aspiring to. If you haven’t taken their Customer Service Survey, please do consider it. It will probably take a good half an hour or more to work through the 30 questions, but if enough of us do it and STL take our feedback on board, it will surely be time well spent.

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Revisiting this month’s Christian Marketplace, I was encouraged to see Jonathan Brown, Kingsway’s Business Development Director, responding to Robin Henderson’s questions about Christian CD prices in the Letters section (p.4, April & May issues).

Christian Marketplace, May 2010

Whilst I acknowledge what Jonathan says about economy of scale and appreciate the huge investment Kingsway makes in supporting its artists and their products — and applaud Kingsway’s commitment to continued monitoring and reviewing of their prices — Jonathan’s observations seem to raise more questions than they answer:

It really is about economy of scale along with people’s perception to CD retail prices, which is driven by The UK’s Top 40 and more importantly supermarket pricing. Supermarkets continue to use CDs and entertainment product as a loss leader and to drive footfall.

Jonathan is undoubtedly right in his observations about the supermarkets… > Keep reading and join the conversation…