Trying to make a profit out of bookstores can be challenging and there is no use telling comforting lies to yourselves that it will be easy. The biggest challenges that a bookstore can face are competing with the branded bookstores, the online bookstores and eBooks. People tend to order them online as they find it easier and simpler to order books online, eBooks are easy as they do not have to carry a heavy book around with them and it is free most of time unlike the actual books that you get after paying a heavy sum of money at times.
But that does not mean you cannot make profit at all. There are certain ways that will boost your sale and bring in profit. Let us look at such tips briefly:
- Marketing
One of the simplest and the most important point that any business owner who is looking to make more profit must know about. You can held book fairs and make it exciting so there will be more customers who will like to come and visit your store. Open accounts and pages in a social media which is the easiest way to get more people to get to know about your store. There are various ways of marketing one of them can be advertising which is an easy way to market your business. Take up affordable ways of advertising for your business be it in the newspapers, distributing pamphlets, social media, etc.
- Know what books to keep
How do you know what to keep in your store? Keep finding out what the best sellers are each month and each week. This way you will stay updated and know what to get before hand. But not only getting best sellers will do the trick for you. You need to know your surroundings and neighbourhood. If you are situated near a college or a school you might want to get books that go with their syllabus like guide books, reference books, the books required for their syllabus, etc. If you are situated near a residential area with a lot of families and children you might want to get both adult and children interest books. This way you can bring in all the age groups in your store without keeping limits for target audiences.
- Employees and sales skills
Friendlier staff can attract more customers. Educate your staff on how to seem welcoming and how to help the customers with what they need and how to handle their complaints. Once you have a welcoming staff the atmosphere of your store becomes very inviting automatically. Who likes to got to a store with grumpy staff members therefore it is highly necessary that your store gives a friendly appearance.
- Pricing
The pricing of your books in the store must meet the customer’s expectations as they have a lot of option everywhere so make sure that the prices are not above the margin. That does not mean you have to compromise with profit but learn to set limits which will keep the profit and customer coming in your business.
- Start a branch online
As mentioned earlier the online stores are doing a great amount of favour to many companies. Therefore there is no harm but only profit if you move half of your store online. This will not reduce your business in the store but you can find means to bring in customers in your store as well by giving special prices to the walk in customers, putting offers, etc. But the customers who find it difficult to approach your store will obviously choose the online store and the customers who find it accessible to come and buy it physically will be attracted because of the offers.