Well - we passed our 3rd anniversary on October 30! As I mentioned in the 2nd anniversary musing, we use the Abebooks statement “seller since October 30, 2017, as our birth date. We sold our first book on April 18, 2018 Michelangelo off to NYC for US$50.
Reading the 2nd anniversary musing I see two big changes that have occurred over this past year.
Last year, I talked about our successful foray into the local marketplace, at both the Tantallon Farmers’ Market and at the Scarecrow Festival, in Mahone Bay. Those events were non- existent, in this plague infested 2020. Christmas at the Forum has morphed into a format that doesn’t work for us this year.
To quote from last year’s musing “I used to tell people that we sell primarily on the internet. This is no longer the situation. We have clients who have bought from us on 3 or more occasions. And every single person who has visited our Hackett’s Cove bookshop has bought something.”
Because of COVID-19 we are back to selling primarily on the internet. A big challenge was the dramatic slow down in postal delivery rates. And international postal rates are high. For the first time, just yesterday, a potential purchaser in the UK balked at paying postage of $65 for an $80 book. It was a big, heavy book.
We still had a great year, though. Revenue continues to grow nicely. We hit a new sales price high for a single book at $1,500. (Surpassed last week, when we sold a book for $1,600!).
This is a family business, Glenda and I live it every day. As does our webmaster and Facebook guru, niece Renée Gruszecki, who continues to do amazing things for the business. Just recently she did a posting asking readers what their all time favourite book was and that generated a lot of responses.
We continue to get compliments on both the business name and logo from clients and others. And this praise rightly belongs to son, Gregory, and daughter-in-law, Maria. This was their work. To quote from a client in NYC “Smart-looking business card ,too!”. And this person is the head of the impressionist department at Christie’s. I passed this compliment to Gregory and Maria, right away.
I was remiss last year in not recognizing an important member of the family team. Our very own Book Hound, Freyja! Visitors, always pre-warned, that do come to visit the shop are greeted in the driveway by this loud Belgian Shepard. But once the greeting is over, Freyja comes down to the bookroom and lies about as customers browse.
In addition to voraciously buying books, I keep an eye our for the “odd pieces of art” that I think will add some character to the bookroom.
While internet sales are great, I miss the interaction with booklovers at the fairs and in our shop. Hopefully, when I celebrate our 4th anniversary, I can once again say that we do not sell
primarily on the internet!
In the meantime, happy book hunting to you all.