June Bookstore Sales Virtually Same as Year Ago
Bookstore sales for June showed no improvement over last year, and actually slipped a fraction of a percentage point by comparison with June 2001. Preliminary June bookstore sales figures of $1,200 million were down 0.1 percent from the $1,201 million of the previous June.
June is the fifth month in a row in which bookstore sales failed to keep pace with overall retail.
Overall retail sales of $302 billion for June 2002 came in 1.3 percent over the $298 billion realized in June of 2001.
Larry Abramoff credits his "mid-life crisis" as a catalyst for some new directions at his bookstore. After founding Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons in Worcester, Massachusetts, 27 years ago and expanding to five locations (including the main store, which houses a full-service restaurant and publishing company), Abramoff was ready to do some event retooling.
This month, the New York Times began sending Book Cash checks as a gift to consumers who upgraded from a trial to a full subscription to the newspaper. It is expected that the Times' Book Cash check, which is good for $10 towards payment for any book purchase, will be distributed to as many as 20,000 consumers. Booksellers could start seeing customers with the checks as early as this week.