Top Ten Things

Store operations are the necessary procedures that keep your store healthy and functioning. They can also become complicated. You may not be aware that there are a number of low-tech solutions for common problems. In this hour, booksellers will have the opportunity to hear from presenters who will provide affordable, easy-to-use and scalable technology suggestions to help run your business — and your life — more efficiently. This session is for stores of all sizes. 

Featuring:

• Cindy Dach, Changing Hands Bookstores (Tempe & Phoenix, AZ)
• Julia Davis, The Book Worm Bookstore (Powder Springs, GA)
• Nathan Halter, Batch for Books US
• Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore (Richmond, VA) 

Known for cultivating and building solid and symbiotic relationships with bookstores, university presses can be some of the best curation partners you have. Join a panel of booksellers and representatives from university presses as they discuss curation, partnerships, mission, finances, and — oh, yes — favorite titles. 

Featuring:

• Clancey D'Isa, Seminary Co-op Bookstores (Chicago, IL)
• Catherine E. Hobbs, Columbia University Press (New York, NY)
• Gianna LaMorte, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX)
• Levi Stahl, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL)
• Alyson Turner, Source Booksellers (Detroit, MI) 

Consigning out books or other products to local merchants allows you to reach different locations and markets and enables you to strengthen the quality of your brand. Join a conversation with booksellers who regularly consign books to other merchants and know firsthand what the benefits and challenges are. They will share tips for getting started and suggestions for maintaining a vibrant business through consigning products. This session will also include discussion on and samples of operating agreements and other important documents. 

Speakers include:

• Kathy Burnette, Brain Lair Books (South Bend, IN)
• Rebekah Shoaf, Boogie Down Books (Bronx, New York)
• Jenny Cohen, Waucoma Bookstore (Hood River, OR)

Whether your store is new or long established, it can be profitable to consider how your store could be structured differently than your current business model. Join a conversation with booksellers who will provide information on starting a new nonprofit bookstore or transitioning an existing bookstore to a nonprofit.

This conversation is moderated by Veronica Liu, Founder Collective Member & General Coordinator, Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria (New York, NY). Presenters include: Jamie Rogers Southern, Executive Director, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC); Jeff Martin, Founder, Magic City Books and Booksmart Tulsa (Tulsa, OK); Jeff Deutsch, Director, Seminary Co-op Bookstores (Chicago, IL); Praveen Madan, CEO, Kepler's Books and Magazines (Menlo Park, CA)

• Serena Longo, Harvard Bookstore (Cambridge, MA)
• Teresa Lynch, The Ripped Bodice (Culver City, CA)
• Lety Stanton-Verduzco, Brain Lair Books (South Bend, IN)
• Misian Taylor, Room of One’s Own (Madison, WI)

Join a conversation with your bookselling colleagues to discuss the returns process and how best to navigate the what, when, and how of returns. Are you pulling by section or publisher, and why? Are you pulling quarterly, monthly, daily, and why? How do you manage staff scheduling and minimize your freight costs? Note: This conversation will focus on workflow and operations and will not include a discussion on inventory management.

Join the conversation with:

• Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY)
• Brad Johnson, East Bay Booksellers (Oakland, CA)
• Alyson Turner, Source Booksellers (Detroit, MI)
• Consuelo Wilder, BookPeople (Austin, TX)

Book fairs can be a profitable undertaking for a bookstore, but for those who have yet to launch a fair or who are new to them, the task can be overwhelming. As a continuation of the ABC Group’s virtual education session “Building School Partnerships: Your Librarian, Your Friend,” this session will feature booksellers with established relationships with their local school districts who will share how to build a realistic timeline for a book fair, manage bookstore and school expectations based on a school’s needs, and create a checklist to ensure the fair goes off without a hitch, whether it’s in-person or online.

Book fairs can be a profitable undertaking for a bookstore, but for those who have yet to launch a fair or who are new to them, the task can be overwhelming. As a continuation of the ABC Group’s virtual education session “Building School Partnerships: Your Librarian, Your Friend,” this session will feature booksellers with established relationships with their local school districts who will share how to build a realistic timeline for a book fair, manage bookstore and school expectations based on a school’s needs, and create a checklist to ensure the fair goes off without a hitch, whether it’s in-person or online.

A strong relationship with a school librarian can amplify events and boost institutional sales for your children’s bookstore or kids’ department. Booksellers from stores with strong ties to their school district’s librarians will discuss how to reach out to librarians, what collaboration looks like, the best way to cultivate the partnership, and how a strong relationship with librarians can benefit a bookstore.

With the growing number of virtual events across an expanding number of platforms, this session aims to offer booksellers tips, tricks, and guidance on how to create safe yet profitable events in the new digital world.

In this session, ABA CEO Allison Hill and COO Joy Dallanegra-Sanger discuss ABA's Fall Marketing Campaigns including the “October Is the New December” materials as well as the #BoxedOut campaign coordinated with DCX advertising.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “data is king” many times, and it isn’t going anywhere. Knowing how to collect and use your customer and sales data is key to successful marketing and better customer engagement. Jordan Brannon and Cassandra Cross of Coalition Technologies, a Los Angeles-based digital marketing agency, will introduce some key elements of maximizing the value of the data your business captures, and ABA’s Ryan Quinn will present the top 10 tips and notes from indie bookstores.

With the onset of COVID-19, many bookstores made an overnight switch from welcoming customers for in-store browsing to operating as fulfillment centers for online orders, curbside pickup, and local deliveries. This change has been one of many that stores have been faced with during this crisis. With online sales predicted to increase across all retail sectors this holiday season, now is the time to review and streamline operational workflow for these new processes made necessary by COVID-19. Join us for a conversation that will help you think about streamlining your current processes — online fulfillment, curbside pickup, local delivery, etc. — to improve efficiency and accuracy.

The Top 10 Things to Know About: Managing Cash Flow,” which features ABA CFO PK Sindwani.