Growing Number of Consumers Are Giving Gift Cards Instead of Books, Study Shows
More and more gift buyers are avoiding the decision-making process of book purchasing for the more convenient purchase of a bookstore gift card/certificate, according to recent research conducted by Ipsos BookTrends. If the gift certificate/card growth rate continues through 2005, and total consumer dollars continue to be relatively flat, "it is a good assumption that gift certificates/cards could account for 5 percent of consumer dollars or around $700 million," noted Michael Hoynes, ABA marketing officer.
Anna Haverty of Book Clinic, Inc. in Nebraska City, Nebraska, was recently informed that she was selected at random to receive a History Channel Gift Pack for answering a three-question survey on participation in the Book Sense/History Channel Hardcover History promotion.
It just seemed that Green River Books in Princeton, Illinois, which recently celebrated its one-year anniversary, was meant to be -- and that LuAnn Salz and her author husband, Trey Barker, were destined to own it. Though Salz and Barker had plans to move from Denver to the Princeton area to open an independent bookstore, it was through good luck -- and, of course, hard work -- that they happened upon their dream location for the store.
Book Sense recently announced the winners of the Make Some Magic With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix consumer sweepstakes and bookstore display contest. Winning the consumer sweepstakes was 13-year-old Jessica Gerhardt of Santa Monica, California, who picked up the sweepstakes bookmark at the University of Southern California Bookstore in Los Angeles while on a school trip.