Tag Archives: STL

New Trade Distribution Arrangements for HarperCollins (Updated)

Posted on December 10, 2009 by | 4 Comments

Press Release: HarperCollins New Trade Distribution Arrangements

Bringing a longstanding exclusive distribution arrangement with STL to an end, HarperCollins have today announced new distribution arrangements to the UK Christian book trade. In a press release (pdf, 70kb) issued on Thursday, December 10, 2009, Sam Richardson, Head of Religious Publishing at HarperCollins, advised that new agreements had been reached with IVP and Norwich Books and Music, both of which will now carry the HarperCollins religious titles range. Stock is expected to be supplied to both distributors early next week.

Both IVP and Norwich Books and Music offer same day despatch for in-stock items on orders placed before 12 noon on weekdays, with no minimum order quantity or small order surcharge. Both companies accept orders by phone, fax or email. IVP offer a freephone order line, 0800 622968; Norwich offer online ordering via PubEasy.com. Disappointingly, however, unlike HarperCollins themselves, neither company currently offers online invoice payment via batch.co.uk.
Download pdf or read on for the full press release…

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The Future Shape of Christian Bookselling

Posted on December 9, 2009 by | 20 Comments

The shape of our trade is changing, perhaps beyond recognition for those who still think of bookshops as some sort of quaint cottage industry where dusty tomes gather even more dust on dusty shelves. The reality we’re up against is this: online bookselling with its armchair shopping and lower prices is here to stay. Hiding behind the bricks and mortar of our high street  — or back street — stores isn’t working; and the arrival of the eBook simply adds to the challenge.

The former SPCK bookshops are history, although a few have risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes; and even now, as I write, work is underway in Chichester to resurrect the bookshop there: reopening is planned for this Saturday, December 12. Five of the St Andrew’s Bookshops have been split off from the rest of the chain to form the new Quench Christian Bookshops group: will their new emphasis on becoming “a hub for the local Christian community” give them the edge they need?

Wesley Owen is in crisis and we have yet to see which branches will survive: all or just a few? The bigger stores or the smaller ones? All of us are feeling the shockwaves from Biblica’s decision to pull the plug on its UK operations and until the powers-that-be decide in their decidedly questionable wisdom to let us know who the group’s new owners will be, it seems that we can but watch and wait — but is that not what the season of Advent is about? Biblica’s timing in pulling the plug — especially as Keith Danby has stated that they were not forced to do so by their bankers — appears as outrageously atrocious as their timing in implementing SAP here in the UK last year. But what of God’s timing?

And what of the collapse of Borders? Even bigger shockwaves are ripping through the mainstream book trade amidst hotly denied rumours of Amazon planning to open its own high street stores.

What then can we do? Does watching and waiting need to be passive? Last month Matt Wardman posted an outsider’s perspective, a conversation starter, New Ways of Being Bookshop. Just as churches are having to emerge from the ghettoes of Christian subculture, are having to find ‘fresh expressions’ and new ways of being church, so too must we find new ways of being bookshop. Dozens of conversations are emerging across the blogosphere: conversations that we, surely, need not only to be listening to but actively taking part in.

Last year I wrote:

For Christian bookshops profit isn’t — or shouldn’t be — our driving force: we are called be a prophetic presence on the high street, not simply another profiteering one. And for that we need churches behind us, supporting us as part of their mission strategy, helping us to reach out to our communities, to be places where people asking questions about spirituality and faith can make their first tentative steps.

Never, it seems to me, has the time been more ripe for us to be just that: a prophetic presence on the high street. Not an invasive or intrusive presence but a solid presence that says, here is a rock or here is an anchor in the midst of the storm. How we ride out the storm of our crisis with STL — a storm which one publisher I spoke to has likened to a tsunami — will be our testimony to those around us, to the wider book trade as well as to the individuals who visit our stores.

Last year, it seemed as though churches didn’t want to know. One clergyman has even said to me, quite bluntly, that if a Christian bookshop can’t make it as a business then it has no business being in business. I hear what he says — but my heart says he’s wrong. Yes, we need good business sense, we need better sense than we’ve seen behind the scenes with SAP at STL UK, but we also need spiritual sense. As someone far wiser than me has observed, prophecy is not so much about hindsight or foresight: it is about insight. To develop as a prophetic presence in our nation, that’s what we need; and that’s what we now see emerging in dozens of online conversations: church leaders are asking questions about the shape, viability of and rationale behind Christian bookshops — not in order to dismiss but to explore the very real possibilities for missional thinking that our presence presents.

I’ve recompiled my previous index of some of those conversations here, adding a few recent articles from the mainstream media, and I’ll be updating it periodically as further stories unfold. I urge you — somehow, in the midst of all the manic busyness that this time of year represents — to take some time out to read through these conversations, to join in with them, to start your own; and see where the Spirit leads:

Earlier Discussions…

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Posted in Book Trade Ramblings, Bookshop Ramblings, Christian Bookshops

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STL UK: Preferred Bidders Selected but Outcome Remains Uncertain

Posted on December 5, 2009 by | 2 Comments

In a new trade update issued yesterday afternoon, Keith Danby has announced that STL UK’s “preferred bidders” have now been selected. The final outcome remains uncertain “until the due diligence process is concluded” but they

remain confident that one or more transactions will be concluded for various aspects of the business, thus ensuring a seamless continuation of supply to our many valued customers.

The sale or sales are expected to be concluded by the week commencing 14th December and a further announcement will be made “when the sale process comes to a conclusion.”

The announcement makes no specific mention of the future of the Wesley Owen bookshops or Authentic Media/Paternoster Publishing, but Danby concludes, “we are hopeful that the majority of the business will remain for the longer term.”

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UCB Suspend Mail Order Services due to STL Supply Problems

Posted on December 4, 2009 by | 2 Comments
UCB2GO: Service Suspended

UCB2GO - Service Suspended

During what should have been their busiest time of year, the run up to Christmas, UCB have suspended their online/mail order service, UCB2GO, due to concerns over STL’s ability to supply. The suspension came into effect on November 23rd and is expected to remain in place for a period of three months:

UCB2GO has recently been closely monitoring the activity of its main supplier ‘STL’, which has made several trade announcements over the last two months and which last week put itself up for sale due to trading difficulties.

So that we can ensure that no UCB2GO customer is disappointed with unfulfilled Christmas & New Year orders we have taken the decision to suspend operations at UCB2GO for a period of three months as from the 23rd November 2009. However we are confident that our supplier will ultimately find a way forward and we continue to pray for the staff and management of STL during this difficult time.

The statement goes on to reassure customers that if recently ordered items were in stock then they can still expect to receive them; payments for orders for items that were out of stock are being refunded (cheque) or not processed (credit/debit card).

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SAP and IBS-STL UK: A Timeline and Some Reflections

Posted on December 1, 2009 by | 23 Comments

Given that the collapse of IBS-STL UK has largely been attributed to its failed SAP implementation, the following timeline (which undoubtedly has a few gaps) may prove helpful in formulating the questions that should now be asked in order to ensure that a disaster like this doesn’t happen again. The fact that SAP was intended to be a global roll out but stopped here in the UK also raises questions: I reflect briefly upon some of these at the end.

October 2007: Groupsoft announces the start of SAP implementation in the UK, the first phase of a proposed “multi-country” roll out:

Groupsoft starts IBS-STL SAP Retail Project in UK

IBS-STL is one of the largest Bible and Christian literature ministries in the world – they translate the Bible into world languages that have 1 million or more speakes and distribute the Bible—and evangelism and discipleship literature—to people who might never learn about Christ any other way.

Groupsoft is implementing SAP Retail ECC 6.0 – across their multi-country distribution systems – in US, UK, South Africa, India and China.

23 October 2008: STL UK website and order processing suspended for SAP installation.

28 October 2008: SAP goes live.

3 November 2008: STL Blog: Apologies are offered as problems rapidly become evident. Delays in order despatch and tracking are acknowledged:

As planned the system went live last Tuesday and we were able to despatch some orders. Orders continued to be despatched everyday last week, although it wasn’t until Friday that we experienced a relatively trouble free day and were operating at anything near full capacity. We do continue to experience some issues which may cause some inconvenience, e.g. the interface with Fed Ex is not yet operational and we are unable to advise you exactly where your order is once it has left our Warehouse.

5 November 2008: STL Blog: “some technical difficulties with a small number of orders” acknowledged. Problems with carriage charges on backorders noted.

6 November 2008: I report briefly on the situation from a retailer’s perspective: STL: Back Online but not Back Up to Speed

7 November - 11 November - 12th November 2008: STL Blog: “problems in moving stock from bulk to live racking” blamed for delays in order processing.

14 November 2008: Timing isn’t the issue – Mark Hurley: Decision to ‘Go Live’ with SAP in the run up to Christmas 2008 is defended as having been taken “at the highest level”. Trade customers express dismay as orders remain unfulfilled.

19 November 2008: Steve Mitchell presents SAP Go Live to the Booksellers Association Christian Booksellers Group (BACBG). In an open letter to trade customers, Graham Sopp apologises for ongoing problems, although problems are attributed to “business process bottlenecks” rather than to the software itself:

We originally planned to implement the new system in August. However as the date approached, it became apparent that further testing of the new system was necessary before we could commence training people in how to use the system. We were faced with a choice of going live in late October or waiting until January 2009. Unfortunately, we would have faced immense difficulties in standing down our external project team of consultants for three months while we prepared to go live and then to re-assemble that team in January. After extensive testing of the system we were confident we could start with, at most, minor disruption. So we took the decision to go live in October.

Most of the problems we have encountered over recent weeks are related to business process bottlenecks and are not directly related to software and, in fairness to the system team, could not have been anticipated by the extensive testing we carried out.

I report briefly on the BACBG meeting: STL: Light at the End of the Tunnel?

22 December 2008: STL Blog: In the face of continuing difficulties faced by trade customers, a detailed explanation and defence of the SAP implementation is offered: Why SAP and why now??

19 January 2009: Trade customers receive further apologies for delays in despatch along with the following explanation:

The reason for this is our team of consultants are still working on solving a number of bedding down issues in SAP where orders can get stuck in the system.

January/February 2009: Keith Danby takes control of UK operations and apologises for the problems caused by the UK SAP implementation. From Christian Marketplace, February 2009:

Asked about the recent difficulties which the trading arm of the charity had been experiencing in the UK, following the introduction of new systems at its warehousing operations in Carlisle, Danby said, “SAP has been a very big investment for IBS-STL. We made this investment because we believe this will ultimately give us a Global Enterprise System.”

With regards to the timing of the implementation he commented, “When we embarked on this project we wrote into the contract that we would not ‘go live’ during the autumn trading period. Originally, it was to be launched in the spring. Like all major computer projects, there was slippage and the revised date was then end of August which slipped to September and the finally to October. At one time we had over 20 SAP consultants working to keep deadlines.” He also stated, “It is important that you know that Graham [Sopp] was not asked to step down as CEO because of the SAP problems.”

Danby also made the point that had the system not gone live in October then the launch would have had to be held back to March 2009. “Delaying to March would mean the SAP consultants having to leave for 4-5 months … as they are all freelance consultants, getting them to come back as a team was regarded as unlikely.” The SAP software was successfully installed “and it works” said Danby, “but we encountered significant operational procedure problems”. He admitted that more time was needed for testing it with their operating procedures than had been anticipated.

“We have spent 21 years being committed to serving the UK Christian Retail trade”, he said. “We take failures like this very seriously and I say again we are deeply embarrassed and sorry.”

25 February 2009: STL Blog: Update given on returns, receiving and backorders:

Single line backorders are still occuring; however we have seen a substantial reduction in the incidence. Our team along with consultants from SAP are continuing to work on resolving the residual issues.

8 April 2009: STL Blog: Message from Keith Danby acknowledges ongoing unresolved issues “with the new IT system” and announces the appointment of Andrew Clyde as Director of IT with specific responsibility for SAP development work.

1 May 2009: STL Blog: Problems with SAP blamed for Invoices with 0% discount:

If for a new product a product group is selected on a discount matrix where no value is maintained then SAP will apply no trade discount to the order – the result on your invoice is 0% discount. So how could this happen? Well, SAP is not able to automatically check that for say a particular Authentic book the combination of product group and customer group is correct.

14 August 2009: STL Blog: Trade Announcement from Keith Danby states:

A number of factors including the SAP implementation have caused STL Distribution serious Supply Chain difficulties, which have resulted in severe cash flow problems.

16 November 2009: Biblica announces the sale of its UK operations and lays much of the blame for the crisis upon the problems with SAP. This is perhaps best summarised in Tania Mason‘s report for Civil Society, Top-250 Christian charity to close, 18/11/2009:

David Young, the charity’s UK general manager, said the charity had been struggling financially for some time but the failed attempt to install an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in October 2008, that should have integrated all its warehousing, sales and customer services, was the nail in the coffin.

“We installed the accounting software a year earlier and on its own it worked fine, but the implementation of the ERP caused all kinds of problems with inventory and it was just as the recession hit. Those two things together gave us serious problems.”

They resulted in significant cashflow pressures, excess stock, and supply chain and service difficulties in the charity’s distribution and retail units. [...]

[...] SAP is yet to respond to IBS-STL UK’s criticism of its ERP system. A spokeswoman told Civil Society: “They are still talking about and trying to get to grips with the problem.”

18 November 2009: STL Distribution USA issues a statement — cited at Christian Book Shop Talk — to counter rumours that its operations are also under threat, advising customers (amongst other things) that

The US organization has not attempted to install the SAP software, and our systems are not affected by the attempted installation in the UK.

Concluding Reflections

The fact that the USA division (and presumably the other international divisions mentioned in Groupsoft’s October 2007 announcement) has not attempted to install SAP raises at least two questions:

  • At what point was the decision made to discontinue the global roll out?
  • Why, at that point, was the UK implementation not halted?

To an outside observer — judging purely by the extent to which the blame for STL UK’s crisis has been placed on the SAP implementation failure — it appears that IBS-STL UK, its employees and trade partners seem more than anything else to be paying the price for drawing the short straw: for being unfortunate enough to be first in a roll out that was part of a much grander scheme. If the implementation had first been attempted in the USA, South Africa, China or India, would it now be one of those divisions fighting for survival instead of the UK?

Clearly other factors have been at play, not least the state of the economy, but the SAP implementation had to start somewhere and it is a tragedy that Biblica, in the end, did not have the necessary resources to support the division that drew that terrible short straw.

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Wesley Owen: Bids for Individual Stores Not Ruled Out

Posted on November 26, 2009 by | 1 Comment

In an interview posted by the Edinburgh Evening News (24/11/2009, cross posted at Scotsman.com), David Young, General Manager of IBS-STL, has acknowledged the possibility of the Wesley Owen chain being split if buyers can be found for individual branches or groups of shops:

He said he understood there had been “significant interest” from possible buyers but did not want to raise hopes.

However, the fact Edinburgh is one of the company’s biggest stores in terms of turnover and has a central location could make it a more attractive proposition than some other parts of the business.

Mr Young added: “We are really keen to sell as much as we can to secure the jobs.”

He said a potential buyer would not have to bid for the whole chain, but might be interested in individual shops or a cluster of shops. “We are taking the next few weeks to gauge the level of interest, then we hope to make some kind of announcement.”

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Saving STL UK: Towards a sustainable business model?

Posted on November 24, 2009 by | 5 Comments

Whether or not the possibility of a group buyout for IBS-STL UK will even be considered by Biblica’s Board and Trustees remains to seen. As of this posting I am still awaiting detailed financial statements from the company, without which it is somewhat difficult to even begin to prepare anything remotely resembling a firm proposal for prospective investors to consider. My understanding, however, is that the level of interest from prospective buyers has exceeded Biblica’s expectations and that discussions with some are well underway: at this stage it appears that a consortium such as I have suggested may not be needed.

Nonetheless, in response to several queries, here is a rough guide to how I would envisage a new business taking shape under a trade/community shared ownership model. This is emphatically not a business plan: it is very much preliminary thinking and all input, for, against or otherwise, is very welcome.

  • Freedom of speech, including the use of blogs and social media, will be actively encouraged at all levels.
  • SAP will be subjected to intense scrutiny and, given the experience to date, most likely scrapped, to be replaced by a tried and tested system licensed from another wholesaler.

Looking at the three divisions…

1. Wesley Owen
The chain itself would cease to exist. The shops would be rebranded and refocused on their local communities, with consortia of local churches and/or other Christian groups each taking responsibility for their own local branch, with an emphasis upon developing the shop as a social/community hub. Branch managers and staff would be responsible for stock selection with each shop aiming to become self-sufficient within a pre-agreed period.

  • Please see Matt Wardman’s post New Ways of Being Bookshop and the appendix of related discussions for some ideas on how this might be taken forward.

2. STL Distribution
The distribution division would be owned and operated by its employees, retailers, publishers and other investors working together. My vision would be for it to be run by a democratic board drawn from amongst the investors and answerable to their fellow investors: a genuine shared ownership company operated by the very people for whom it exists.

  • To help tackle the debts, I invite publishers to consider writing off some or all of the amounts owed to them in exchange for part ownership.
  • Retailers investing in the operation would be offered preferential trade terms.

3. Authentic Media and Paternoster Press
The publishing division would be offered for sale to other Christian publishing houses, possibly splitting into three segments: music, popular books and academic books. I do not expect, however, this to be an issue as I would be surprised if Biblica have not already found a buyer (or buyers) for this division.

Wrapping Up
Thank you to all those who have contributed to the discussions so far: please keep your comments and suggestions coming. As previously stated, this is not a business plan, although I hope that it might form the foundation for one. At present the ball remains in Biblica’s court…

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STL UK Crisis: Reports roundup and further reflections (updated)

Posted on November 22, 2009 by | 21 Comments

Figured a roundup of reports on / responses to the STL UK crisis might be useful. Reports marked * are largely nothing more than re-runs of the official press release with minimal or no additional comment. No doubt there are a few I’ve missed and more will emerge as the tragedy unfolds — but as I’ve said, I truly don’t think it needs to be a tragedy: despite the sceptics’ voices, I still believe that there are more than enough of us to save the day if only we will stand together.

I may be a tad crazy but I’m not crazy enough to think the entire edifice can be saved intact: it will have to be split up into smaller parts, with local Christian groups pooling resources to support specific branches of Wesley Owen, rebranded and refocused to serve their local communities. Kudos to the Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent: he’s written to clergy in his area to see whether they can do something to keep the Harrow branch open. Do we have similar initiatives elsewhere in the country?

It’s also clear that some very hard questions need to be asked about the SAP implementation: why was it allowed to go so badly wrong? Why was it done as an all-or-nothing no-way-back project? We seem to be looking at some very serious high-level incompetence here and one of the first things whoever takes over the business will need to do is take a long, hard at this — then most likely scrap the system and start again.

An intriguing paragraph in the Civil Society report seems to offer a possible ray of hope for any parts of the business for which no buyer is found:

The corporate finance division of Baker Tilly is marketing the operations of the charity to a number of interested parties and hopes to complete negotiations for the sales or potential closures within the next few weeks. Young said that if buyers are not found for all parts of the business, Biblica may step in and buy the rest, but “ultimately IBS-STL UK will be wound up”.

Looking beyond Wesley Owen for a moment, all the shops that signed up to STL’s ‘Crown Books’ scheme now need to urgently rethink their ops.

Finally for now, for those who may have missed yesterday’s brief note: news has emerged of at least one publisher, Kingsway, pulling their stock out of STL’s Carlisle warehouse, returning it to their HQ in Eastbourne. I have requested further information from Kingsway: what happens, for instance, to retailers’ outstanding orders? No doubt an official announcement will be forthcoming.

Update, 24/11/2009: John Paculabo from Kingsway states:

As we approach certain timelines in our agreement, there are decisions that Kingsway will take irrespective of whether STL find a buyer or not, and currently these relate to foreign distribution.

STL remain our trade distributor, however in the today’s climate this poses a number of questions going forward, needless to say we are aware of thecomutations and possible implications.

I can assure you that Kingsway has not removed all of its stock from STL.

Update, 16/12/2009: Kingsway Books & Music back in stock at STL: STL Blog | Email Archive

Reports and Responses
Google News Search: Wesley Owen | IBS-STL UK | Biblica
Carlisle News & Star: STL News Stories

Reports marked * are largely nothing more than re-runs of the official press release. For a roundup of more recent reports, see Wesley Owen: 26 Branches Enter Administration, Others Sold (Updated) (19/12/2009)

Most recent first, list updated 12/12/2009:

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A Message of Hope from Germany: Co-operation is Possible

Posted on November 21, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Late last night, Saina Veigel left the following comment on my post A Modest Proposal to Save STL. Please read it and reflect on the possibilities this model could open up for us here in the UK:

Hello fellow Christian merchants in the UK!

I am/was a Christian book merchant from Germany and I failed miserably with my online bookstore because only the big online stores find costumers AND make a profit online nowadays in Germany. The competition is VERY TOUGH – even online!

I offered secular and Christian books with a charity-scheme but still didn’t succeed. I just closed my shop down in September 2009 after 1,5 years. You have to be part of a chain or of a “book merchants buying co-operative” to survive.

But I may have some interesting information for you:

Our biggest German Christian wholesaler “Hänssler” faced severe difficulties a few years ago and they formed a co-operative – or more precisely: they started a TRUST/BENEFICENCE. In this case Christian publishing houses/media companies pitched in to save the wholesaler (I don’t know the details though).

Now – many Christian publishers stand as a team together but, everyone remains independent at the same time. Get some information and advice from Frieder Trommer in Germany, if you can. This trust helps the Christian book trade. I don’t know how it works but it seems to work REALLY WELL. The TRUST’s website is: http://www.stiftung-christliche-medien.de/

Churches and Selling Books …

I personally don’t believe that churches can function as “alternative bookshops”. They are not trained to do so. They will mess it up. Booktables in churches are successful here but the whole approach has its limits. You can only use volunteers up to a certain point. You can’t expect the church to run a business. Selling Christian books IS a business – even though it is also a ministry. Business has to remain business. If it were to be a pure ministry one would have to ask for book donations instead and then you don’t have a business anymore. It just doesn’t work.

I am half British and half German. I always felt that English Christians are better off because they have so many more Christian titles to choose from. So much variety in Christian literature!

I really hope that the British Christians will wake up to the fact that what they have is precious and rare (compared to the rest of the world).

Wish you all much wisdom, God’s grace and a wonderful miraculous “solution”.

Best wishes, Saina

By working together, I believe that we can save STL – Wesley Owen – Authentic Media. We do not need a white knight in shining armour to ride to the rescue: we need, rather, to learn to trust one another and work together.

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New Ways of Being Bookshop

Posted on November 20, 2009 by | 4 Comments

Matt Wardman writes:

Following recent posts by Phil Groom about the crisis in the STL Distribution company on the SPCK News Site and here at the Christian Bookshops Blog, I thought I’d run a few reflections up the flagpole.

I have no involvement in bookselling, apart from loving and buying books, but, like the Mouse, I have tried to listen throughout the last 2 years of supporting the campaign to scrutinise the rundown of the former-SPCK bookshop chain.

Where are we?
Some parts of Christian Bookselling is now in chaos – obviously. SPCK will not be back as a bookshop chain, and that has taken away a good deal of infrastructure and resources (did I really write that 2 years ago? – it’s the original Radio 4 interview) upon which many other activities and smaller projects used to rely.

Now, events at STL are putting a question mark over the future, or at least the nature, of the trade’s distribution backbone as well. I won’t say more about STL because I’m not in the loop and I’ll get it wrong.

Further, I remember Phil’s comments on the Christian Booksellers’ Convention at this time last year:

Perhaps I am unduly pessimistic in regarding Bible Society’s acquisition of CBC, the Christian Booksellers Convention, as an effective obituary notice for CBC. Perhaps merging CBC with CRE, the Christian Resources Exhibition, is not so much the end of an era as the beginning of a new one. …

This, quite simply, makes it a non-starter for a retailer focused trade event. We are already faced with online competition from our suppliers: are we also expected to smile sweetly and welcome direct, face-to-face competition as those same suppliers offer our customers deals to walk away with that we will never be able to match because those suppliers will not offer us terms that will make such deals possible?

Putting these insights together leads me to think that an important need at this time is to place the retailer back at the heart of the dialogue, and look for ways to survive in a very difficult environment.

The SPCK Experience
The “former-SPCK” position is that we have lost 25 bookshops, but with a variety of successful (or at least “working”) models emerging to fill the gaps in a surprisingly large number of places.

  1. Independent bookshop in (and supported by) a Church in Cardiff.
  2. Bookshop in a former church combined with Cafe in Norwich.
  3. Market-stalls – Birmingham and, I think, Worcester.
  4. Combined Christian/Secular bookshop in an indoor market, including a wide range of other products in Lincoln.
  5. Completely new bookshop, filling a similar space in the market, but with a local focus

And these are simply a few examples off the top of my head.

In addition, there continue to be other places where there may be an opportunity for a new project and an existing customer base / supporting community which would support such projects.

I’m saying “look how well these people are doing”; I’m saying “it can be made to work, even now, in the middle of a recession”.

What is working?
Having watched, written and campaigned about the dismantling of the SPCK network over a 2 year period, I’d note the following factors:

  1. The foundation of a loyal customer base – which can come from local churches, being a unique supplier of “product x”, engaging people via a blog, or on the ground (what about a Craft Table), or from an existing community seeking a new bookshop after the local SPCK vanished.
  2. Wider range of products. This can be Christian non-book products; but it can also be by treating Christian books as a specialist category within a non-specialist shop.
  3. Form of incorporation. As a comparison, the OXFAM Bookshop chain receives an annual subsidy of well in excess of one million pounds simply from the reduction business rates for charity properties.
  4. Online trading. Some places do this successfully, but I don’t have case studies.
  5. Certain churches have even used this as a strategy to support themselves, for example the Bradford-based Harvestime organisation.
  6. Creative cost-sharing/reduction with other organisations.
  7. Putting something “upstairs”; OXFAM tend to do it with other specialist franchises, such as secondhand wedding dresses.
  8. Collaborating with other local independent businesses in the traditional way.

I’d acknowledge that there is nothing fundamentally new here, and that many bookshops already do some or all of these.

They all have these points in common: innovation, flexibility and different tactics in each place.

Reframing the Dialogue around Retailers
These are my key suggestions as to current needs and opportunities:

  1. A lack of focus on the retailer the traditional trade events.
  2. A need for innovation.
  3. Intense economic and other pressures.
  4. Recent accounts of what others are doing successfully (or equally importantly, not successfully), how, and in what context.

I wonder whether some type of event deliberately aimed at helping retailers learn from others’ experience and to share successes and failures would be beneficial at this point.

Wrapping Up
I’ll stop there for now, and may add some more thoughts later.

What do you think?

Appendix: Some Related Discussions (added by Phil Groom; most recent first, updated 08/12/2009)

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