ABACUS Survey Submissions Due July 13

American Booksellers Association main store members have until Friday, July 13, to submit their data for the annual ABACUS financial independent bookstore survey.

ABA member bookstores can begin the submission process by going to www.ABACUSbenchmarking.com. If stores participated last year, the store account information has been carried forward. New participants will need to create an account to access the site. Members can complete the survey securely online or download it as a PDF to complete and return to Industry Insights, the company assisting ABA in conducting the survey.

In addition, bookstores that have never submitted to ABACUS that participate in ABACUS-17 will this year have the option of registering an additional staff person for the upcoming Winter Institute, set for January 2019 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

ABACUS is an exclusive member benefit for participating bookstores, and this confidential survey of key bookstore financial information provides those participating stores with in-depth, customized reports that are an important tool for improving business operations and profitability.

By becoming part of the ABACUS community of participating bookstores, booksellers will receive:

• A full ABACUS benchmarking report (including comparative financial ratios, operations data, and company profile information)
• A customized bookstore performance report
• A range of online reporting tools that provide a wide variety of specific analyses, allowing stores to evaluate performance versus similar companies and track their company’s performance over time against the industry results, among other criteria.

ABA member stores with questions about ABACUS can e-mail ABA Senior Strategy Officer Dan Cullen or Michael Becher of Industry Insights.