Cool Bookstore Idea That Might Be Illegal
When I was in Minnesota for the holiday I spent some quality time (drinking) with a good friend of mine. He happens to help run a pretty sizeable, mostly used bookstore in the Twin Cities. I’m being deliberately vague here as I don’t want to get him in trouble with publishers, the IRS, his boss or god. He explained to met that he was now buying [major U.S. publishers name omitted] so he has “a stake in the stores performance”. I didn’t really think anything of it assuming he was referring to the pride every buyer takes in seeing the books he or she’s selected flying off the shelf. Well what he actually meant was that he borrowed some money and was literally buying the books from this publisher and when they sold he split to profits 50/50 with the store owner.
I’ve never heard of this. Have you? Is it sketchy from some reason? I don’t know what it would be.
At first I was sort of surprised and assumed it was not on the up and up, but the more I think about it, it’s actually a great incentive plan. When I ran Bound to be Dead in St. Paul I was always looking for ways to reward the staff for being knowledgeable, accessible, engaging and just selling more books, but it’s really hard. It’s not like The Gap where they ask you if anyone one was helping you today as you purchase a pair of blue cords. Under this scheme though my friend sure has an incentive to buy well, hand sell and make sure the store is merchandised well – or to at least do all of those things for [major U.S. publishers name omitted] books.
It’s like picking stocks. So in that mindset I was trying to think which pub I would literally put my money on…….
-L
1 comments:
I don't think this is illegal at all... it's like the employee is selling books on consignment through the bookstore, since they are his property but they're being sold through the store. The store owner doesn't take the risk on the books, and the employee doesn't make his money back unless the books sell. He's also kind of a subcontractor for the publisher, I guess. It is unusual and kind of complicated, but interesting.
I'm always interested in ways to get employees invested in the bookstore's success, and reward them for their skills and hard work. At my bookstore, all employees are responsible for certain sections - history, sports, poetry, etc. At the end of the year the employee whose section has shown the most growth gets a bonus. (This year it was Spanish language books -- go fig!) This is partly about customer tastes, but also about skilfull selling and marketing within the store.
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