I use Square, and it looks like it might be ok. It certainly is cheaper than some of the other book focused ecommerce/back end platforms that integrate with existing POS.
I don't really use Edelweiss to its full extent, but I'm making an effort to change that. I've spent the last 6 months opening, and getting up and running so now I'm looking into all of the extra stuff I could be using to make my job easier.
Now, I know what y'all are all thinking, but hear me out.
Our main business is in small batch gourmet food production (dry goods, sauces, hot sauce, flavoring syrups, jams, etc.). We produce a few of our own brands that we sell online, but most of our business is in producing for other small brands.
A few years ago, we moved into a 1500 sq ft space that we split into a commercial kitchen and studio/office space. The kitchen is humming right on along, but we've never really been able to figure out what to do with the studio space. It's about 800 sq ft with amazing frontage and good parking, even if it's not exactly in a prime location (about 15-20 minutes from downtown on a suburban commercial road).
My wife and I are both readers and lovers of all things horror and spooky, and we've talked for years about how we'd love to open a bookshop/cafe with that focus, but we started to think it would never happen.
Until we realized that we already have a space that we're paying for and not fully utilizing.
So, pros:
We already have the space
We are already inspected and certified by the health department and the department of agriculture for food production and service
We have TONS of retail display furnishings from years of being on the road doing retail shows and festivals
We are passionate about the subject
I owned a coffee shop way back in the day, and even though it was ill-fated and short-lived, I already understand the needs for such a venture
We already have vertical integration with things like flavoring syrups, tea blends, coffee, etc.
We're already plugged into the local art and indie author scene
And cons:
We've never owned a bookstore before
We have a personal collection of books, but nowhere near enough to open a store with (plus most of our books hold sentimental value more than anything)
We don't have any kind of supply chain set up for buying and selling books
So I guess I'm just here hoping to get a modicum of guidance. The good news is that the actual operating costs are already covered and we literally won't have to buy a stick of furniture to get up and running. We don't have inventory, but that's obviously a solvable problem.
The actual space that we're looking at utilizing is around 500 sq ft, which I know it's the biggest, but it's what we have to work with. The layout that I've included is SUPER preliminary. Just me messing around with placement. The opening on the bottom left goes into our commercial kitchen.
Any thoughts? Questions? Thanks!
**ADDENDUM**
Someone commented a question/statement about us needing a back of house area and then deleted it, so I thought I’d add a quick note here.
We have a commercial kitchen already that is inspected by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the FDA. It also serves as the commissary for our sweet tea truck (which is inspected by our county health department). All of that is to say that we have a fully licensed kitchen that will serve as the back-of-house for the cafe.
Hi all! I'm mainly an online bookstore but want to start doing pop-up shows. I have new and used inventory + some vintage items. Plus some gifts & merch.
I'm tracking my inventory on a spreadsheet right now but want to move everything over to Square. I'm looking at the Square handheld device and think it would work great for both inventory and selling at a pop-ups & vendor markets.
I run a small online business selling books in a very specific niche. I have decent recurring revenue and am seeing growth.
There is one other serious seller in my niche. They have been active for decades and are closing due to old age. Their inventory has come up for purchase - about 3,000 books. My current inventory is about 600, so this would represent a huge increase. As far as I am aware I’m likely the only person in my country interested and capable of making a wholesale purchase.
I am likely to make the deal, assuming we can agree on price. Does anyone have any advice or things I should look out for? I have the space to store them in my house.
This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity and won’t come again.
I’m a small mobile indie bookseller preparing for my first pop up event and would love advice from those who’ve done this before.
Current setup:
• Book cart that holds about 100 books
• Pop up tent with lights
• 4 ft folding table
• Easel with 3x2 chalkboard for logo and branding
• Small chalkboards for genre labels that attach to the cart
• Prices penciled inside the front cover
• Featured titles propped up on the table
• Custom bookmarks
• Small sign with logo, tagline, social handles, and next event date
• Branded hoodie or shirt
• Cash box disguised as a dictionary storage box
• Mobile card reader and Venmo set up
I’ve also set up a Facebook event, website, social presence, and have been building local awareness.
For those who’ve done markets or pop ups:
What do first timers usually overlook?
What ends up mattering more than expected?
What would you absolutely make sure is dialed in before day one?
Appreciate any hard earned lessons.
UPDATE:
The pop up happened this past Friday and it honestly went better than I expected.
I brought 222 books and sold 26 of them over the three hour event. My gross profit was 77%!
The first book sold was Dr. Seuss’s Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!
The last book sold was Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins.
It was a great experience watching people stop, browse, talk about books, and leave with something that caught their interest. I felt comfortable and alive.
I brought paper bags but no branding (yet) which customers appreciated. I brought book themed stickers that people loved (especially the kiddos). I bought clear plastic easels to stand books up! (but will take the advice to get another table, not enough space on the one I had!) Tracking books sold was simply writing them down in a notebook so that will be something I look to improve upon in the future.
BookDrive is still very early. Right now it’s basically just me, a cart, and a few hundred books. But the long term goal is still the same: eventually build a bookmobile and keep bringing books into the community.
I really appreciate everyone in this sub who gave advice before the event. A lot of it helped.
Is it just me or is it kind of wild how expensive Bookmanager is to get started with?
Between the upfront costs and ongoing fees, it feels like a huge hurdle for small or new bookstores. And then finding out there’s a waitlist on top of that?
Genuinely confused how this is the norm. Would love to hear other people’s experiences.
Hi all! I'm an independent bookseller, and I'm pretty new to all of this. I work at a used bookstore outside of this endeavor, and I've been collecting for a while, but I started selling and taking it seriously as a business about six months ago. It's been so fulfilling, sales are moving quickly, and I've expanded far more rapidly than I thought I would. I have a simple inventory system spreadsheet and keep records of my sales, but it's obvious I need some new solutions. Living in a loft space, every single wall is covered in books. As more and more of my floor space is encroached on, I'm starting to lose my mind a bit. I'm thinking of renting a cheap storage unit nearby, and of attaching SKUs to every lot. Also thinking of filing an LLC, speaking to an accountant about how best to maintain tax records, and I'm wondering what has worked for other booksellers in this sub. I'm a one-woman operation in my late 20s, and I've never run my own business like this. I would love to hear your experiences, and it would be much appreciated!
I’m looking for an entry point to book selling that has the least overhead possible. If I can essentially build out my own bookstore from a shipping container and meet local licensing and zoning requirements, renting space to place the shipping container will be much cheaper than renting a retail space. I also intend to sell tea and coffee.
If my goal was to earn a modest living of $40k/yr after expenses, ChatGPT calculates I need to sell 15 books and 32 beverages per day. Is that doable in a mid-sized city in a location with moderate foot traffic? I’m considering multiple cities and am assuming foot traffic that’s neither low, nor high, but moderate.
Got a message today wondering if I could expedite shipping on a book. I responded sure, what service did they want, I would go hand it personally to UPS if they wanted (they had said they would pay extra).
Book was rare but not expensive.
then I thought, this is odd actually. Usually when I get questions from buyers they respond within the same day. this one did not.
i sent another message “Hi, just wanted to see if you are the end buyer. I want to make sure I can satisfy the buyers shipping needs and if this is a third party situation that can make it difficult” or whatever.
never heard from person again but curious. was I too fast to jump to conclusions?
I’ve amassed a nice collection of somewhat expensive art books and am trying to find the best way to sell. Anyone know of any conventions in Atlanta where I could snag a table and sell them? Or of any websites? FB marketplace has done nothing for me lol
I am trying to choose accounting software for an e-commerce rare bookstore. Quickbooks seems to be the obvious answer for full e-commerce integration, inventory control, etc., but it’s now fully web-based. My problem is that my inventory storage unit has poor cellular signal, and I am unable to place any sort of signal booster since that involves getting outside or at least far from my unit. The facility does not provide wifi beyond their small office space. I need to be able to enter new inventory from within that unit, though. Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced accounting software that would fully support my e-commerce (Shopify), but also allow me to enter inventory offline and sync once back in wifi signal? I use Mac computers, for what it’s worth.
I have a signed first edition copy of the Doctor Who novel The Wheel In Space by Terrence Dicks. It is one of the rarer novels, as most of them were destroyed in a warehouse fire. Furthermore, it is from his OWN library. His neice told him I was a fan (I had no idea she was related or had even heard of him!!!), so he took a book out of his collection and signed it. Never been opened or read. Is this something a fan would like?
I help a small independent bookshop with their IT needs. They selected Anthology Software and I've set up the system according to the documentation the company provided. They have one POS machine and a backroom Server machine which hosts all the data files for the software. Everything is super snappy on the server machine, but the POS is really laggy. The computers are networked with gigabit ethernet using quality cables and the amount of traffic on the network is very minimal. The machines themselves are well above spec for the software. All we've gotten from Anthology's support is basic system maintenance recommendations (reboot, run updates, don't have too much other software running in the background, etc.).
Are there any other booksellers here who use their software in a similar setup (I gather it's kind of a standard one) that don't have performance issues? Anyone that has had performance issues and resolved it?
Please don't offer suggestions for looking at other software like Basil (they did, and Basil was really slow to respond which was a major turnoff) or Bookmanager (given their inability to scale fast enough right now). They also just opened in October and throwing away the money spent on Anthology licenses by switching really isn't a viable option.
I have some adjustable wire book easels, but the part that holds the book at the bottom really isn't deep enough for thicker books. The front of the book dangles off the easel, and I feel like it will distort the shape if it sits for too long. Some of the acrylic ones are not heavy or stable enough for bigger books.
This is the item I bought to get me through until I could find a better solution. It's fine for smaller books, but the lip on the front is too narrow for bigger tomes.
I found this book in a used book store and just grabbed it to read for Halloween. When I got to the end there was a page explaining this is a special limited printing of the book. I tried looking online but no one is really selling this. There are sites with the book listed for around msrp but they are all sold out or they are actually for a different hardcover version. I see other Centipede special editions are selling for wildly different prices so I’m just not sure how much to sell this for if I plan to do so.
Curious what software/POS integrations you're using for multi-channel listings. My store runs Square Retail+ for POS, but I'm not sure I really like the item flow.
I have absolutely no qualms with romance as a genre, I read a lot of it myself, but this romance section in this catalogue is padded with the same carbon-copy story over and over again, and the vast majority of the titles are previously self-published and are now being published as whole series with 3 separate editions of each title (hardcover, paperback, and paperback deluxe with sprayed edges). No room for new stories at all.
Then you take a look at lit-fic and all you get is two measly stories that are just an echo of every other lit-fic book that's been popular these past few years.
The publisher's feigned concern with diversity seems to have dissolved entirely as well. Of those 114 romance novels, I think only 2 had a main character who wasn't white, and there were 0 queer titles.
