The Printed Page

I just found this old CLC bookmark in a secondhand book. I love it! (especially the bit about books not answering back!)
Lorna

Shop Local

Have a read of this from the Christian Bookshops Blog it's worth giving it some thought...

Listening to Liz Pilgrim, a riot-hit small retailer from Ealing on BBC R4 tonight was an inspiration, providing a strident rallying call for support to the High Street.Events of this past week have demonstrated that the UK High Street is hurting badly – in more ways than one. Shops in riot affected areas will have an uphill struggle to get their businesses back on track. Retailers everywhere are finding it hard work to make headway against strong and adverse economic headwinds.

If these local businesses are forced to leave their High Streets, it will be very hard, if not impossible, to open them again. Does that matter? Yes, I think it does. Those communities losing local traders are negatively impacted in a considerable way. We could all do much more to help – by stopping to think whether we can buy locally, by switching our purchasing from the internet to local shops (where possible) and from chain stores and supermarkets to the local trader. Yes, there’s often a price differential and I know that we all have time constraints but there is a positive social impact.Some of you might say that it’s already too late. It’s not. You can make a real difference locally.

So much of retail in the UK is comprised of fairly small units and these outlets provide considerable levels of local employment in so many of our towns and cities. It cannot be all about Tesco’s and Debenhams.

Use local markets wherever possible as these too continue to help commercial life to thrive in our neighbourhoods and communities. Yes, it’s hard to do this but it’s also worthwhile. At the moment, any help for smaller retailers, and sole traders in particular, is very welcome.

If you agree with this please post it elsewhere and let’s help bring more footfall to our High Streets. Do we really want to live in a homogenous world? Do we want all of retail life to move online? We all have to buy ‘stuff’. The only question is; where will we actually do our purchasing?

So go on – Support your own High Street. Support your local retailer. Support your small shops. Support your local Market. You might even enjoy yourself!

Lorna

Price Matching - Moral?

Price Matching. Just to be clear I understand this to be an offer by a retailer to sell an item at the lowest price a customer can find it elsewhere. It is an aggressive marketing ploy, if completely successful aiming at the elimination of all competitors. During the early phase the consumer benefits. He is king, and appears to call all the shots, driving down prices until the retailers creak under the strain. Great for him - until one retailer succeeds in out-muscling the others, perhaps putting them out of business in the process. From this point the boot is on the other foot, and over a period of time prices will rise, as the retailer dominates. This is sheer market economics in the raw, at its ugliest - dog eats dog.

I have been pondering the morality of this as it applies to the market in christian books sold by self proclaimed christian companies. Is it fitting that publishers, bookshops and online retailers employ Price Matching? But then, it is a difficult time as the recession bites and the waterhole is shrinking. Temptation abounds.

Sometimes it is consumers who provoke a price war. Last week we had someone ring up to ask "Do you do price matching?" She had located a book cheaply elsewhere and wondered if we could or would sell it for the same. Now we were not going to play the rival Supermarkets game. But was that a christian attitude for her to have? I freely confess that I myself shop around and look at all the options and deals on and offline when buying goods, so am I just being hypocritical here? However is it not one thing to set your stall out and sell at what you can afford (maximising customer service and other enrichments as well) thus creating healthy competition, and another to advertise Price Matching? I feel that oversteps the mark. Managing a Christian Bookshop, I want to earn a living, but I want others in the same field to as well. Otherwise Biblical principles regarding love to our neighbour are violated. Price Matching discredits christian retailing, and it is shameful for sober christian people to provoke it. Feedback wanted please!

Jeremy

Think Bookshop, Think Bike

Did you know that this week (18th - 25th June) is designated Independent Booksellers Week? Indies, as they are known, are putting on a splash to remind the public that bookshops do still exist, and can provide a unique service that Amazon or even Tesco cannot match. Events are planned for this week, offers, reading groups...whatever the ingenuity of the managers can conjure up. But it's tough just to survive in the current climate, so you may have to travel a bit to find an Indie and admire the special window displays. How will you travel there I wonder? Co-incidentally it is also Team Green Britain Bike Week as well, and they have all sorts of promos going on to get the nation cycling. So fight obesity! Get your rusting bike out of the garage and do a perfect double whammy - cycle to your local bookshop. Especially if it's a Christian Bookshop! Just think of the health benefits for mind and body... Amazon, etc, promote laziness on both counts. You slouch at a computer and locate a title for purchase which you have been recommended to. No chance to look through it and compare it with others on the same subject, within the pleasant ambience and the informed advice to be found at a well run bricks and mortar bookshop. And, yes, there even are books to be found there which will be cheaper than on Amazon. To prove it check out: http://www.christianbookshopossett.co.uk/product.php?&id=163&
Remember to include Amazon's postage costs.

Katie goes for bricks and books...
Just needs to work on her cycling!








Jeremy

Customer Feedback

This is Angle Tarn, a place of wild beauty around 2000 feet up in the Lake District. A lovely location for team building in a month where fellowship has been the buzzword of the Christian booktrade. Unity is strength, but only if it is more than superficial.

The Lord blessed us with some fine weather, and then I was greeted by this sunny comment in an email on our return...

I would normally order them (books) direct, but given the current state of Christian bookshops across the country I feel it's right you get my custom even if I live hundreds of miles away!

This was accompanied by another, in an email from Australia...

I really like your website, well done!

Short but sweet, just like our time in the Lake District.

Jeremy

Quietly Does It

It's dropped rather quiet on the sales side in the last week, but though I should be complaining, I'm not. All hands are needed at the pump - producing enhanced book information on the new website. It seems a mammoth task just to do the Gospel Mission titles, which largely come without publisher's cover blurb. However I'm concentrating on these as they are distributed by us here in the UK. Great work is being put in by other supporters on other book ranges, which is HUGELY appreciated (I can't praise higher than capitals on a keyboard!) Lorna is getting book images in asap. It will all take a long time - we know it's a marathon not a sprint, but we also can't rest satisfied with the website until it's really functioning to give browsers the support they (you?) need. It does also give us an opportunity to review our stock and consider how best to shape up. A shocking statistic was sent to me today, that around 100 christian bookshops had closed or gone into administration in 2009 alone! These are truly unprecedented times. I feel I should be more thankful that the Christian Bookshop Ossett is even here. And as long as others do too then it will continue in its present form.

Jeremy

The Times

...they are a-changing. Markedly so in the booktrade. The high street bookshop has been under increasing pressure from on-line sellers such as Amazon for some time. Just before Christmas the Borders chain collapsed. The same trend has been observed in the Christian sector of the trade. Last year IBS-STL, the largest Christian media supplier in Europe, went bust. They owned the 40 strong Wesley Owen chain of shops. So the New Year has begun with much navel gazing. Is the traditional concept of a Christian Bookshop viable anymore? This has not escaped the notice of the national press, and last Friday 'The Times' newspaper published a very informative and thought provoking article. I recommend reading it - you can find it on Times online:-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6990136.ece?
I don't agree with the idea mentioned in the article of the Christian Bookshop as a kind of church, or substitute for it. But it is a place of contact, potential spiritual communion (or conflict!) It is more than a mere marketplace, and yet has to be able to shape up to on-line marketers and direct selling from publishers. What do you think? Are we fit for purpose?
Jeremy

China and the Climate

I was quite struck by a customer's account of his recent holiday in China. He said that in all the time he was there, visiting the usual tourist resorts across that vast country, the sun was never seen, except in Hong Kong (and that was unusual apparently). It was hot weather all the time. The reason quite simply was air pollution. The constant murky conditions were referred to only this week in the news, with it being one year away from the Olympic Games in Beijing. Despite radical Chinese plans to shut down industry altogether for the period of the Games, the IOC are saying even now that some events may be affected by poor air quality. China is probably the world's largest polluter now - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6769743.stm . However, as this article points out, the West cannot take any moral high ground on the subject because they have gradually moved their manufacturing base to China and the far east because of cheap labour costs. Hence less emissions here and more there. This movement is also noticeable in the book publishing market. I am reliably informed that all children's colour board books are now printed in the far east - things are so far gone that there is no Printer with the kit to do the job in this country now! Generally speaking the Christian publishers have already turned to follow the trend. 'We have to,' is the cry. 'People expect Christian books to be in the same price league with mainstream stuff... Printing costs in the UK are the highest in the world...' etc. I wonder if Christians would be more inclined to pay a little extra for a Christian book that they knew had been produced with the highest ethical and environmental standards. Or in a "World Village" is everyone satisfied to preach 'love thy neighbour', but at the same time flytip in his back garden?
IVP have produced (I trust cleanly!) some interesting books on the subject of Christians and the environment. I don't think I have found one which thinks the subject right through from a Reformed perspective yet, but there are gleanings here and there. Examples are 'When Enough is Enough' and 'The Care of Creation' both edited by R J Berry. Also 'L is for Lifestyle' by Ruth Valerio, although this is a bit wacky in places. However I'm sure we'll find an odd copy from under the counter for you if you ask.
Jeremy