Opening a bookstore is a great thing to do and you will be joining a supportive and inclusive community. Before you do, have a clear idea on what sort of store you want to be and if there is a local customer community for you. Use suppliers and associations to get advice and support and make sure you have enough capital to properly stock your store. Finally, get organised well in advance of opening, which of course includes getting a bookstore management system.
Starting a bookstore requires careful consideration of various financial aspects. From stocking an appropriate amount of inventory to designing an efficient floor plan, every detail impacts the success of the business. Understanding the costs involved in shop fitting, signage, branding, hardware, and other essentials is crucial for planning and budgeting. By being aware of these financial aspects and making informed decisions, aspiring bookstore owners can avoid costly mistakes and create a successful and sustainable business.
In March we worked on:
• Deals API and Deal Interface: – We worked a lot on improving the functionality of discounted prices
• Website – We have upgraded to ES 8.0 (Elastic Search); this app is responsible for the quick search box and reports pages. Main benefits include speed, reduced memory usage) and security
• Self Onboarding – More improvements to to improve user experience to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the onboarding process
• Housekeeping – Bug Fixes, Github CI, Vue, Site Settings, Rails, Ruby, Codecheck, Gem Deprecation, Vue 3 Cypress Integration, Webhooks,
• Upgrades – We have now completed the R6 upgrade rollout! This has been an enormous task that delivers improved security and performance. The rollout has been gradual so we do not expect too many issue but email support if you strike any. (Now we start on R7 🙂
The March 2024 bestsellers list features some exciting new titles that have shaken things up! Leading the pack is Dervla McTiernan’s What Happened to Nina? with 2,390 sales. In second place is The Bee Sting with 1,314 sales, followed by Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice debuting in third with 1,046 sales.
The February Best Sellers appeared like a well shuffled deck of cards, lots of familiar faces but in a different order. About a dozen new titles featured with The Women selling the most of the new titles. Trent Dalton’s Lola in the Mirror retained number one spot selling 1,385 copies (-576). Likewise The Bee Sting maintained second place with 1,372 (-490) copies. It seems even the best seller list is susceptible to the recent Taylor Swift phenomenon. Her Little Golden Book Biography took third spot (up from 17th last month) with 1290 sales (+530).
Loyalty programmes for bookshops that focus on ‘creating’ good customers. Learn about the CirclePOS no-strings attached loyalty programme.
In February we worked on:
• General Ledger – a new general ledger feature; gift card and credit note improvements
• Webhooks – We created a CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) interface for managing webhook statuses using Vue
• Website – Pre-Order functionality added to group websites
• Self Onboarding – More improvements to to improve user experience
• Housekeeping – Rails 6 & 6.1, Vue3 Upgrade (& Ruby) – continuing upgrades, Ledger, Website SEO and Gems
The CirclePOS Promotions Tool with Discount Codes for Bookstores is a handy feature that lets bookstores craft personalised online promotions tailored for specific target audiences using discount codes.
In January we worked on:
• General Ledger – a new general ledger feature; gift card and credit note improvements
• Stripe – further enhancement of the refund process
• Website – SEO, Footer, Category and Click and Collect features
• Self Onboarding – We introduced a user-friendly dashboard on the sys-admin page to track user signups and progress, enabling sales teams to follow up on potential clients and reduce abandoned signups
• Housekeeping – Rails 6 & 6.1, Vue3 Upgrade (& Ruby) – continuing upgrades
The Chestnut Tree Bookshop – a profile The Melbourne inner-city suburb of Footscray is one of the most diverse in Australia, a community that expects a local independent bookshop to reflect and support that diversity. Reem Sweid’s The Chestnut Tree Bookshop (and café) meets those expectations with a broad product range, several community reading initiatives … Read More