5 Tips for Running a Successful Store Event

August 2, 2017

If you think having fun at work is a myth, then you’re wrong! Maybe it’s time to bring some pizazz into your workplace and host an exciting event for you and your customers! Connecting with customers is a deeply important part of running a successful business, and what better ways to connect with the people you cater to than by literally catering to them? Starting an interactive in-store experience for your customers may seem like a daunting task, but in the long run, not only will the revenue reflect your efforts, but you will also have created a whole new community of people within your business.

 

Here are some tips for running a successful store event:

 

1. Get the word out

You may have a steady stream of customers throughout the week, but how do you know if putting on a special store event will be worth your efforts? The answer to this is to advertise until you can recite your event details in your sleep. One hugely effective way to do this is through social media. More and more people are turning to Facebook, Twitter, and websites to find details for upcoming events, so make sure it is posted well enough in advance for people to plan around your event! If you spring it on your customers the day of, they may not get the memo and the poor turnout might turn you off of ever putting on another event. Another highly effective way to do this is through word of mouth. Though social media is an expanding phenomenon, there is still a great deal of value in personally informing your customers about your upcoming events. Whether it be just with a friendly reminder, or if you hand them a physical flyer outlining all the details, customer interaction is always effective. Remember, that’s why you’re putting on the events in the first place!

 

2. Be passionate!! 

If there is something that you are passionate about, don’t hesitate to incorporate it into your events! Many themes I’ve used have been related to my favorite authors, holidays, seasons, animals, etc. Trust me—your customers will know if you are engaged. The more enthusiastic you can be about bringing something new and exciting to your store, the more entertaining and meaningful it will be for your customers. Not to mention, the more engaged you are with your audience, the more rewarding it will ultimately be for your business. By participating and reaching out, you can form important and lasting relationships with people, which will essentially do a large portion of your marketing work for you! When you provide a good customer experience, people are much more likely to pass on the word to friends and family and send many new faces your way!

 

3. Dollar stores are your best friend

When planning events for a large group of people, it can be hard to fit everything you need into a budget that will still allow for profit. This is where your local dollar store comes in handy! In my experience, I have been able to provide craft supplies, prizes, decorations, and refreshments for 50+ people for under $100, just by shopping smart and making a little go a long way. Buying things in bulk and really getting your money’s worth out of the supplies you purchase makes the day’s sales numbers that much more satisfying.

 

4. Free is key

If you want your store event to be successful, I have found that advertising FREE attendance for your customers is the key to a larger turnout. Your goal is to get more traffic in your store, and nothing brings bargain shoppers out like free things! The more people you have coming through your doors, the more you’ll have purchasing your product when they may never have stepped foot in your store otherwise. It also never hurts to make noticeable displays of event-related product to catch their attention. Another good tip for advertising a free event is to keep a sign-up sheet and ask your customers to put their names on the list prior to the event to guarantee their attendance. This way you can gain a better estimate of the size of your crowd, and customers will have time before the event to spread the word to their friends and families. That being said, when promising a free event for anyone to attend, make sure you have adequate space to accommodate a large crowd. The word “free” often generates a pretty overwhelming response!

 

5. Think outside the box

Don’t be afraid to seek outside help for your events! There is a wealth of available services geared specifically towards catering to corporate events. Whether it is a magician, a live animal show, or an art workshop, there are always new and affordable ways to bring something exciting into your place of business. Many entertainment companies are also more than willing to provide discounts and extra deals to suit your needs, so it always helps to call and speak personally with your potential guests before booking.

 

Regardless of which direction you decide to go in with your events, remember that they are yours and if you’re not having fun with them, then your customers won’t either. Whether it is an event geared toward children, family, or adults, the more engaged you are in what you’re doing, the better success you will have. Participating in fun activities different from your daily routine will not only improve your relationship with your customers, but it is an excellent team-building exercise for you and your staff as well. The more involved you become within your surrounding community, the bigger your customer base will grow and you will find that work can be more fun than you thought it could be!

 

Samara Bissonnette

Book Outlet

Retail Store Manager

 

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Everything You Need to Know about Remainder Marks

July 12, 2017

“Is it necessary to mark your books?” “Why are the marks so big?” “Can they be a different color or shape?” “Why do you put that mark on your books?” These are just a few of the questions we regularly receive in regards to the infamous remainder marks that can be found on many publisher overstock books. At Book Depot, we are conscious of feedback from our partners and wanted to take a moment to help explain the process for these often misunderstood marks.

 

These marks serve a purpose in the publishing world, dictated and added by the publishers themselves. When a book first goes to the retail channel, the balance of unsold stock is returned to the publishers for credit. At that time the publisher marks each book to signify it has previously been through the retail channel. Without that designation, publishers would not be able to distinguish the proper life-cycle of their inventory, forcing them to treat all books as new.

 

So, ultimately, what do remainder marks mean to you?

 

In a nutshell, it means deeper discounts, a better sell-through rate, and higher retail margins for your store. Book Depot leverages its strong publisher relationships to garner a huge assortment of categories and titles, which we then make available to you for up to 90% off of the original retail price. Usually, the remainder mark is barely noticeable to the end consumer, and some books do not even have one at all. However, if your customers do ask, you can tell them it is there so they may purchase fantastic books at incredible prices.

 

To help illustrate our point, we have compiled an infographic to walk you through the remaindering process and why it is significant to your business.

 

From publishers to shelf and back again the life cycle of a bargain book

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Reflection on Book Expo 2017

June 15, 2017

Each spring, the Book Depot sales team embarks on our annual trip to Book Expo America (BEA), the premier event in North America for publishers, book distributors and wholesalers, booksellers, and generally anyone related to the book trade. I think back 17 years ago to Book Expo 2000 (yes, the world did not end that year!), when three people including myself and one of our owners made the trek to attend our very first BEA as exhibitors. We set up our little 10’ x 20’ booth and were ready for business, a little minnow in the ocean of bookselling and publishing. We did come home that first year with a nice order from one of the big retailers in our pockets, along with meeting some of the other great contacts in the bargain bookselling industry, and so began our long relationship with this show.

 

Eighteen BEAs later, it was off to New York City for this year’s event. We now have a booth that is 10’ x 70’ on both sides of an aisle that runs through the middle of our booth to allow attendees to walk through our corridor of book offerings. That is a total of 1,400 sq. ft. compared to our meager 200 sq. ft. from 17 years ago. We had approximately 8,000 samples at the show in either full-book format or, for a couple of categories, just the front covers for customers to flip through. The show proper opened on Wednesday, May 31 at 1:00pm for bargain booksellers, but there were a handful of buyers who were in the city even earlier, looking for anyone doing “pre-show” selling. That precipitated me selling from my hotel suite already on Monday morning, working with a handful of accounts. Tuesday was set-up day, a day that all of the sales reps circle on their calendars and look forward to with much joy and excitement. Not!!! For most of the reps, it was up early and off to the Buffalo airport to catch an 8:00am flight to NYC. I was the “advance team” this year, so I was already at the Javits Center by 8:00 am to make sure all our pallets had arrived at the floor location and get the carpet down before everyone else arrived. The entire team was pretty much assembled by mid-morning, and we were busy putting together shelves, opening boxes, and displaying the books over the next 8 hours, transforming a bare exhibit floor into the Book Depot bargain book showroom.

 

Wednesday brought the start of the show, and even though it was scheduled to begin at 1:00pm there were a few buyers who had advance passes to access the show floor early so we kept busy from 9:00am until closing at 6:00pm. For bargain booksellers like us, these shows tend to be very busy at the beginning, as buyers want to come in early and get the good books before they are all gone, knowing there is a limited supply. Typically we will have a very busy first day where we will do 75% of our business, and then the show will dwindle down over the next couple of days with minimal activity going on by the final day. By the end of the first day, you pretty much know if it will be a successful show or not. This year our first day was fantastic. Over the years with more of our customers buying from our website, doing warehouse visits, or maybe reviewing focused lists supplied by a sales rep, we have seen a trend towards fewer buyers attending the trade shows. However, this year at BEA was a bit of a throwback to the old days where we had lots of appointments, and buyers came with pen in hand ready to write some big orders.

 

As the week went by, some of us were able to leave a bit early, while others headed out late Friday afternoon, and Dave Wiggins, our Sales Manager, hung in right to the end to close the show and pack up the supplies that needed to come back the warehouse before catching the late flight home. We are all glad to be back safely, and Book Depot’s 18th Book Expo is now in the books—at least from a sales standpoint. There is still some follow-up to do with new prospects, but for the most part, the baton has been passed off to the warehouse to do the awesome job of pulling, cleaning, and packing all these orders, and then handing them off to our shipping team to get them out the door. Thank you again to everyone who stopped by to say hello or place an order, and we look forward to another great show again next year!

 

Rick Mechelse

Senior Sales Representative

Book Depot

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5 Essential Elements of Social Media Customer Service and Why You Need Them

May 18, 2017

If your business isn’t active on social media, it needs to be.

 

Seventy-four percent of consumers use social networks to help them make purchasing choices. This study of more than 23,000 online consumers who interact with companies via social media found that 67% of these interactions were for customer service reasons.

 

What can we conclude from this? Firstly, that the impression you leave on social media is crucial to influencing your customer to buy. Secondly, if people are seeking you out on social media, it is most likely for service rather than for an interest in your marketing.

 

So why do customers choose social media instead of the traditional phone call or email? Convenience is the answer. In today’s fast-paced society, consumers don’t want to waste their valuable time on hold to speak to customer service. Forty-two percent of customers who reach out through social media expect a response within 60 minutes. While social media hasn’t yet replaced the telephone or email, it is quickly becoming one of the main forums customers use.

 

Keeping this in mind, how can you best use social customer service to benefit your business? Here are some strategies for you to consider:

 

1. Consistently monitor your social media pages and respond to customer inquiries ASAP

Keep your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. pages open and refresh them as often as possible. Since customers expect a response within 60 minutes or less, you will want to check frequently for any inquiries or comments, as well as direct messages. You can keep most social customer service conversations public—customers who are leery of buying online or from your company will gain confidence that your brand can be trusted when they see proof of great customer service. Any inquiries that require follow up or that involve personal information (tracking numbers, payment information, or account details, to name a few possibilities) should be moved to direct message if it is available. If direct message is unavailable (for example, on Instagram), ask the customer to send the information to you through email and make sure that the proper follow up is provided. Be sure to post your hours of availability on your pages so that customers will not be frustrated if they reach out to you outside of business hours and need to wait for a response. You will also want to have a link to your website posted so that they can look there for more information.

 

2. Be proactive

Show your customers that you have an ear to the ground for their needs and that you truly care. It is one thing to respond to a customer, but finding customer issues and resolving them before the customer complains provides a high level of service. For example, you can search for your business name on Twitter and bring up conversations that are about you but aren’t directly tagging you. You may also Google search your business name and keywords to bring up relevant posts (i.e.: your business name + review). If you find positive comments or discussions, it is courteous to thank them for their words. If you find a situation that needs addressing, you are able to solve the problem and impress your customers with your thorough attention.

 

A different way of being proactive is by preventing customer complaints through social media in the first place. You can effectively reach your followers with important messages that may have an impact on your service. For example, you can tweet and post on Facebook that you are closing early due to inclement weather before the customer shows up and leaves upset. This kind of gesture changes the framework of the customer service conversation into a positive one rather than always doing damage control.

 

3. Make it personal

Although customers expect quick responses, they do not want to be given a cookie-cutter or thoughtless answer. When space permits, use the customer’s name and sign off with your own. (Note that initials are acceptable on Twitter due to character limits). Ensure that your responses match the tone of the person reaching out—it’s appropriate to be more casual with social media than you would in email.

 

4. Surprise and delight

Sometimes it is beneficial to go above and beyond good customer service when addressing concerns on social media. Many companies have had random acts of kindness for customers go viral—this is the kind of attention you want drawn to your brand. See the example here of what Lego did for a little boy who lost his toy. While it is not feasible to offer free product to everyone who asks, from time to time you may wish to do something special for your followers to see.

5. Know when to ignore someone or delete a post

Although you definitely want your customers to see you turning upset customers around, there are times when it is necessary to end the conversation before it starts. Social media is an excellent way to reach a lot of people, but this can backfire when your customers are exposed to posts or comments that are inappropriate or insulting. Be sure to delete posts or comments that are belligerent to other customers, use foul language, or are discriminatory in any way. These people likely cannot be turned around anyways and are using social media as a way to vent and spread negativity for their own enjoyment.

 

While it reflects poorly on the company to ignore posts directed at you, if you are socially sleuthing and come across someone that repeatedly complains despite multiple attempts on your end to make things right, you can let it go. Some customers will become more annoyed if you reach out to them too many times asking if you can assist them, especially if these are conversations that are going on in the background and not on your pages.

 

 

The more you reliably interact with customers socially, the more likely your other followers are to reach out in the same way. You will develop a rhythm and a style that works for you and helps you to address all inquiries efficiently and effectively— and your customers will trust your brand as one that offers comprehensive and conscientious social service.

 

Written by:

Jaimie VanAmerongen

Book Depot Marketing Team

 

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Retail Store Event Feature: Annual Box Sale

April 21, 2017

Every year on the March break, book-loving customers come from far and wide to visit our retail store location and participate in the Book Outlet Box Sale. Tables upon tables are filled with damaged product or slow selling/excess titles that are accumulated over the year from our warehouse location. About a year goes into preparing the 24,000 sq ft warehouse to become a veritable candy factory of books, lined with overladen tables. It has become such a popular local event that our marketing was made easy by the enthusiasm and involvement of the customers, proving day after day that they look forward to this year-round.

Box Sale 2017

This year’s sale proved to be one of the very best in several regards. The product we procured over the year was a big driver of sales. We were selling books by Emma Donoghue, Stephen King, Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follett, Oliver Jeffers, Sandra Boynton, Julia Donaldson, and so many more! It’s no wonder our customers came in chaotic droves first thing in the morning to rush in and peruse the tables. In past years, we have been accustomed to a line up at the door and rush when we open, but this year was an exceptionally busy year, partially due to the excellent social media campaign that got our customers so excited for this event. As well as visual teasers and daily advertising, we ran a number of new and thrilling contests for our customers, such as hiding boxes in the store and having people rush in to find them, hosting coloring and writing contests for the youth, and a Facebook Like & Share post that reached over 218,000 people, all with the enticing prize of a free box at the sale. Perhaps the most exciting promotion we ran throughout the sale was our Golden Ticket promotion, where we hid a number of shiny tickets within the stacks of sale books, which also entitled the customer who found it to a free box of books at the sale. As a result of all of this incredible dedication and effort from the store staff, we exceeded our past sales results, making this year the best Box Sale ever at a total of 3536 boxes in three days.

 

We hope this might inspire you to run your own exciting sale in your store that garners a lot of attention! Do you have more questions about the sale and promotions leading up to the event? Please comment below.

 

BS March 10 2017

Box Sale 2017 3

Box Sale 2017 4

BS March 18 2017 Post 3

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Benefits of Shopping Online for Bargain Books

April 6, 2017

The trend of shopping online over the last decade has continued to see strong gains, with global online sales growing at an annual rate of 17% by some accounts and much higher for the Asia-Pacific market. Total online spending is expected to reach $3.5 trillion worldwide by 2019, or about 12.5% of total retail sales, according to some estimates.

 

When I look at my own purchasing habits and those of my family, I can certainly see why the growth has been strong over the recent years and why it will continue for some time into the future. Often times I find myself looking for that one specific item; perhaps it’s a part for the faucet I need to fix or some snorkel gear for a Caribbean vacation, or a unique light fixture for a home renovation project. My wife, on the other hand, enjoys the selection and ease of shopping right from our own home. For her, time is very important as she manages a busy household, and the ability to not always have to visit the store is invaluable to her. Not to mention, she loves being able to order several sizes with the convenience of returning the ones that don’t fit!

 

Over the past few years and particularly the last year, we have seen an increase in the volume of sales through our website, www.bookdepot.com, as more and more of our customers realize the benefit and convenience of shopping online for bargain books. Below, we’ll explore a few of the advantages together.

 

It’s often said that in order to find the best books, you have to visit our warehouse. Although we would certainly encourage all our customers to do so regularly to spend time in our showroom and see the beauty of the Niagara Region, the fallacy of this thinking is unless you are physically searching through our warehouse every day, you can never see the full breadth of what we have to offer. Each day we are adding hundreds of new titles to our inventory and the easiest way to keep track of them is by viewing our new arrivals online. You can sort the new arrivals by date, price, quantity, and a host of other filters. Those of you who actively shop this section know that the great titles go very quickly. Here’s an insider tip: we upload all our new releases at 8:45 PM EST, so make sure you’re ready to fill your cart and check out quickly in order to get what you want.

 

Shopping at our warehouse can be overwhelming and time consuming, but with shopping online you can use our powerful search engine to narrow down and search for exactly what you are looking for, which can save you valuable time. Obviously the convenience of shopping online is a huge factor; not only is it easy, it’s cost effective as well since your travel costs will be non-existent. You can even shop for bargain books in your PJs while enjoying your morning coffee!

 

A large factor in the overall rise in online sales has to do with the growth of mobile networks and the use of tablets and smartphones for shopping. With the advancement of technology and the increase in screen sizes, it’s easier than ever to place orders online while on the go. At Book Depot we’ve also made shopping online even more straightforward; just over two years ago we completely redid our website, which now features a fully responsive design that adjusts to the device you are using. Now, regardless of whether you are shopping on your mobile, tablet, or PC, you will be able to experience the same great features. With the site relaunch we are seeing an increase in orders being placed from something other than their PC. Here’s another insider tip about shopping our website: consider adding titles to your cart throughout the day from your mobile or tablet when you have a few spare minutes, or as you think about some product you need to fill holes in your store, then at the end of the day take some time to review your cart, add some more titles, and check out. Keep in mind that orders are not confirmed until submitted so it is possible some titles will be sold out by the time you check out.

 

In addition to some of the benefits outlined above, our website has many other helpful features, such as our Wishlist and Favorites tools. You can use your Wishlist to create a list of the books you are looking for that we don’t have in stock. If we receive a book on your list, you will be notified by email, at which point you can add it directly into your cart. The Favorites section is a great place for keeping track of in-stock books that you want to purchase at a later time. Through the website you can also review your previous orders and check on the status of recently-placed orders. Click here for more information on how to get the most out of Book Depot’s website.

 

We encourage you to send us your feedback on your experience shopping online for bargain books. You have our commitment that we will always seek out new ways to better your shopping experience by consistently improving our platform and offering the largest selection of bargain books anywhere on the internet.

 

Wilf Blog Signature

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Customer Success Story: Shepherds Fold

March 13, 2017

 Shepherds Fold header

Shepherd’s Fold Background

Shepherd’s Fold is a Christian store located in Grande Prairie, Alberta, that has been in operation for 30 years. They offer a selection of books, music, and gift items. They began carrying bargain book product in August 2014 and today, their bargain book selection accounts for 15% of their total book inventory. Shepherd’s Fold was looking to add product to their store that would increase their profit margins and help them compete with online book retailers while complementing their values and existing product mix.

Solution

Book Depot’s large selection of Christian books, low prices, and flexible shipping options allowed Shepherd’s Fold to develop their selection of smaller, slow-moving niche sections as well as stock a variety of backlist titles without requiring a large financial commitment.

Results

Shepherd’s Fold saw their total book sales increase by 10% over the previous year with a 16% increase in book sale profits. They have reported that customers frequently purchase a mix of bargain books and regular-priced merchandise and have noted that they can now offer better prices instore than what they have seen online.

56% average margin: Book Depot’s bargain books translate into an average margin of 56%.

22% bargain book sales: Bargain Books account for 22% of Shepherd’s Fold overall sales.

Quotes

“Bargain books allow a huge amount of our store’s inventory to compete with online prices. Shopping in store is now cheaper than buying online!”

“Book Depot’s low prices allow us to carry a greater selection of backlist titles without tying up significant inventory dollars.”

  • Calvin Smith, Manager – Shepherd’s Fold
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What’s New at Book Depot

February 22, 2017

Two years ago while visiting a prospective university with our oldest son, my wife and I found ourselves in a men’s clothing store that we had paid a visit to a couple years earlier while in the same town. I remembered having a good customer experience the first time and thought I would just pop in for a quick look. Sixty minutes later I walked out with a new suit, two shirts, some ties, and a few other accessories. The gentlemen helping us out was someone I felt comfortable with as he previously owned another men’s clothing store that I frequented close to our hometown. He was also very knowledgeable about his product and took away every barrier for me to buy. Even when I said, “Your store is 90 minutes away and I can’t drive back here next week to pick up the new suit after you alter it,” he said, “No problem, I’ll personally deliver it to your house as I live not too far away.” Wow, now that’s a customer experience, I thought!

Perhaps you have a story of your own that matches an experience like this, or maybe you’ve had an experience that was less than favorable and you would just like to forget it. It may even be possible that you’ve had a bad experience with us somewhere in our history together, and if so, please read on to get to the good stuff and find out why you should try us again.

What’s New

Book Depot Warehouse Conveyor

So what’s new at Book Depot? Over the last 6-7 years we have spent millions of dollars investing in our customer experience. It started with a major overhaul of our 450,000 square foot warehouse, as we retrofitted it with over one mile of conveyors to move product efficiently around the warehouse and ultimately out the door to our customers. The impact of this automation has been nothing short of dramatic for the customer experience—we have the best fill rate in the industry at 98.96% and also the fastest order turnaround time, with most orders being shipped in 3-4 business days.

In 1997 we launched the first bargain book B2B website, and today we have the most user-friendly website with the largest selection of bargain book titles anywhere in the world. When the site was redesigned over three years ago it was important that we made the site responsive so that all our customers, no matter the device they were shopping on, would have the same great experience. If you have not been on our website in the last three years, please take a look; I know you’ll be impressed with what you see and the ease with which you can shop for bargain books all from the convenience of your office (or wherever life takes you!) on your PC, smartphone, or tablet.

Book Depot New Robot Arm

As I said in the opening part of this article, I was impacted by a particularly amazing team member of the men’s store I visited. I know that today we have the team at Book Depot that can provide that same amazing experience to you. Two years ago we invested in our sales and customer service team and held a two day intensive sales training with John Asher Sales Training. Today, our sales team has a combined experience in the book industry of over 80 years, and along with that comes a wealth of product knowledge. Maybe you’re someone who would rather not shop online—no problem. Give us a call at 1-800-801-7193, ext. 229 and ask to speak to a member of our sales team. Or perhaps you enjoy shopping the website but need some occasional help from a member of our customer service team. Give us a call and I guarantee you’ll be impressed with the level of service you will receive, as we have completely revamped our customer service department by adding new team members and training and empowering them to help our customers. Last year we continued our investment in the sales team with the launch of Salesforce, which will give our people even more tools to grow and maintain excellent customer relations.

As you can see, Book Depot continues to take the long-term view on the bargain book industry. We wouldn’t be investing millions of dollars in our company if we didn’t believe in the future of books or in the future of our company. Rather than taking out as much of the profits as possible, we continue to invest for the long term in order to deliver the best customer experience in the industry. I’m excited to say that we continue to push the limits of technology, and this past year has been no exception as we launched and completed one of our most exciting projects to date. New automated sortation equipment (watch video) enables us to sort more books, process them quicker, and assist us in providing you with an even better selection of titles. However, all the infrastructure and systems are worthless if we couldn’t offer you the quality product that we have. We have agreements in place so that shopping here gives you access to bargain books from all the major publishers and many smaller imprints. During the past two years we added some key new suppliers that have complemented our mix to the point where I am confident in saying that our selection has never been better in the nearly 32 years of being in this business.

Maybe you’ve just had a bad experience with bargain books. If that is the case, consider with me the following for a moment. There is continued good news in the industry about printed book sales being up, the decline of eBook sales, and the overall positive outlook by independent booksellers. We are hearing encouraging reports from many of our customers that business is growing and their customers are delighted to have a local bookstore where they can browse, shop, and generally spend a few hours “hanging out.” As the owners of one retail bookstore ourselves, we have experienced the same trend with year-over-year sales being up strongly. What are we hearing from our customers? They love the personal service—the experience of touching and feeling the printed book while being able to get assistance from our knowledgeable customer service team. They love the ability to just browse around and find new favorite authors or titles they would never have thought to buy online. Oh and most of all, they love the bargains.

Book Depot Warehouse outside shot

Everybody loves a bargain right? As a bookstore owner there’s no one who should love a bargain more than you. As mentioned above it is very encouraging to see revenue growth in the category, but ultimately as business owners you need profitable growth. Top line is vanity, bottom line is reality. Let’s face it, double-digit sales growth is fantastic, but if the bottom line is not moving at the same pace, you’re not happy. And you shouldn’t be. This is where bargain books can help you. With a margin that is often double the margin you can achieve with new books, you cannot afford to be without bargain books in your store. With the advance of smartphones, tablets, and eReaders, we’ve seen many changes in the industry and in our business over the years. However, one thing has not changed: booklovers will never lose the appreciation for the tactile experience of the printed book.

 

If you’re a long-time customer, thank you for your loyalty and for the trust you have placed in us over the years. If this is your first time back after many years, I would encourage you to spend some time browsing our website so you can see for yourself our large selection and the changes we have made to our business. I’m confident you will find that shopping with us is a way to save time and money, and those are powerful benefits in today’s market. If you would rather not shop via our website, please call us and ask to speak to one of our experienced sales representatives, who would be happy to assist you by tailoring a list of products for your specific needs.

Book Depot is the single best seller in bargain books. Our vast selection of titles and fast processing times make us a valuable one-stop shop, cutting down on your purchasing time and overhead costs. More choice. Less time and cost.

 

Wilf Wikkerink Book Depot CEO

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Estimated Shipping Rate Improvements

February 17, 2017

Have you ever considered how much stuff we all have? Think about it: how many pairs of shoes, shirts, pants, jackets, kitchen appliances and utensils, electronic devices, personal care items, works of art, and pieces of furniture do we own? What about all the things in our garages, storage sheds, basements, closets, attics, and maybe even off-site storage facilities? Most of us have a lot of stuff—especially when compared to our grandparents, for example, when they were our age. A lot of this accumulation of things (wealth) can be attributed to the increased productivity of human activity due to technology. Today, the average person can produce a lot more in a given period of time compared to someone living 100 years ago. Just think about the mobile phone you carry today that has more computing power (and features) than a Cray supercomputer of the early 1990s for a tiny fraction of the cost.

 

So, what does this have to do with shipping? I’ve been in the ecommerce business since 1996 and despite monumental leaps in technology, the cost of shipping goods has not experienced anywhere near the price-per-performance gains seen in other products and/or services and generally speaking has continually risen year over year. It is no surprise then that our customers, who are shipping relatively heavy goods, are very sensitive to the cost of shipping. For us to be competitive we need to provide great value on books and get them to our customers at the best possible price. This is something we have always striven to do but when it came to our websites, Bookdepot.com and Bookdepot.ca, it sometimes appeared that was not the case. Let’s discuss this by looking at what we have done in the past and what we are presently doing now.

 

Shipping in the Past (not that long ago):

When you were done putting your order together, you would proceed to the shipping page where an estimated shipping cost would be provided. We offered a disclaimer that this was just an estimate and the final shipping price would be determined once the order was picked and packed. In just about every case, the actual price you paid for shipping was less—sometimes substantially so—than the quote since we didn’t want to quote low and have to go back to you and ask for more money.

 

The above process worked relatively well for small orders of less than 10 to 15 boxes (depending on where they were being shipped), but if you were ordering a skid’s worth of books the estimated shipping cost was enough to almost make you fall off your chair. Unfortunately for first-time customers, this was probably enough of a deterrent to scare them off from buying from us. Behind the scenes we were estimating the shipping cost based on a per-box rate from our shipping carrier. Each box would be individually weighed, rated, and shipped with its own tracking number. Our shipping department knew for each shipping location there was a break-point where it became more cost effective to ship the order by LTL (less-than-truckload) and would rate-shop the shipment with two to three LTL carriers for the best rate. In most cases, for a medium size to larger order, the actual shipping rate charged would be noticeably less than the website estimate. For example, an estimated shipping cost of $400 to $500 could in reality end up costing $175. While our regular customers understood this, first-time customers clicked away. Generally speaking, it was a poor business practice.

 

Today:

In searching for a solution, we needed a reliable method of estimating shipping for several variables that included weight, number of boxes and skids, presence of a loading dock, location, and delivery time. The goal was to provide the best possible rate without underestimating the shipping cost. Since many of our internet orders are paid for by credit card via a secure and automated processor, we can’t charge more for the order than the original authorization amount.

 

After some searching and arm twisting, we managed to convince an LTL service provider to give us access to their quoting system. This service provider has access to several trucking companies that offer coverage across North America. Often a trucking company will have more extensive coverage in certain regions of the continent and hence will offer more competitive rates for that area. The quoting system was made available to us via an API (application program interface) that allows us in real-time to pass the shipping information over and receive back the best rates.

 

For the first few months, we monitored daily what we were quoted from the service provider via the API against what the order actually cost to ship once it was packed and prepped for shipping. Again, the goal was to quote the best rate without overcharging or undercharging. The monitoring period allowed us to fine tune the quoted rates to the point where we are now 95% accurate in ensuring that what you see is what you will pay. In a few circumstances, the estimated shipping rate shown on our website is still higher than what you will actually pay. This is due to the expertise of our shipping department in identifying a carrier with an even lower rate for selected orders.

 

The results of these efforts can give you the confidence that the rate we quote you is probably the best rate you will ever find. If you are ever unsure about the rate you are being quoted, please contact our Customer Service Department. They will be pleased to work with you and the Shipping Department to make sure you get the best possible rate.

 

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The Life Cycle of a Bargain Book

January 13, 2017

The Life Cycle of a Bargain Book

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