Bay Area Booksellers Win With Book Sense/BART Promotion

In mid-December, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), and Book Sense teamed up for a promotion that encouraged BART riders to visit their local independent bookstores. On Tuesday, December 13, fifty thousand fliers featuring an area-specific Book Sense Picks list, as well as a coupon worth $10 off the purchase of any one of the titles at participating stores, were distributed at six BART stations. More than 400 BART riders took advantage of the special promotion and redeemed coupons at Bay Area bookstores.

"Everybody that I've talked to about this, including my contact at BART, was very pleased," said NCIBA Executive Director Hut Landon. "BART has said that they'd like to talk about doing the promotion again next holiday season."

The flier's headline announced "BART Rider Thank you! -- A Gift From BART and Your Local Independent Booksellers." The coupon was good through December 31 at any of the 27 participating bookstores listed on the flier.

"From the NCIBA point of view, the promotion was a huge win/win because BART chose independents over chain stores and BART generated a fair amount of publicity," said Landon.

Post-promotion, Landon reported that participating booksellers' comments have "all been very supportive." He added that most said they would like to participate in a similar promotion again, but would modify the offer slightly.

Rich Van Tassell, owner of Bay Books, which has locations in Concord, San Ramon, and Pleasanton, told BTW, "I would do it again in a heartbeat. We felt it was a very worthwhile promotion. It was an excellent example of a public/private partnership that was win/win for everybody."

He estimated that his three stores collected approximately 100 coupons. "We had one memorable person who spent over $80, but the average [sale per coupon] was less, in the $30 to $40 range."

Tassell, who helped distribute the fliers along with three Bay Books staff members, also good-naturedly noted a drawback, "We weren't wild about getting up at four in the morning, but it was a great adventure. It was lots of fun."

In addition to recommendations from area booksellers, the flier included statistics from Civic Economics' Andersonville Study of Retail Economics. The statistics delivered an important message to consumers, noted Tassell. "On the flier was printed the results of the study that showed chain stores only return $43 to the local economy, whereas independents of all stripes return $68 out of every $100 [a consumer spends]."

A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco redeemed about 65 coupons, according to owner Neal Sofman. "I would be happy to do it again," he said. "We had a really nice response in the store. My buyer tells me that all of the titles on the flier started selling. Frankly, I was a little surprised because a fair number of them had been out three or four months. Staff said it was a really good promotion and that many people bought more than the one discounted book."

At Stacey's, also in San Francisco, Tom Allen said that BART's thank you to riders "worked better than I expected. It was obvious for us to do it, because Stacey's sits right on top of one of BART's busiest stations and one where the coupons were distributed. I thought it worked well."

Allen reported that the average sale to coupon users was $41.30 and more than half of the purchasers were not in the store's frequent shopper program, although, he noted, "We do not know how many of these were first-time visitors."

Overall, Allen noted, he thought the promotion was a success: "I would say this is something that brought in customers who probably wouldn't have come in without it. That's a good thing. We'd be glad to do it again."

Other participating bookstores were: In San Francisco -- Alexander Book Company; Black Oak Books; The Booksmith; Cody's Books; Cover to Cover Booksellers; Green Apple Books; and SFSU Bookstore. In Berkeley -- Black Oak Books; Cody's Books; Cody's Books on Fourth; Pegasus Fine Books; and Pegasus Books Downtown. In Oakland -- A Great Good Place for Books; DIESEL, A Bookstore; Laurel Bookstore; and Pendragon Books. In other locales -- Benicia Bookshop in Benicia; Rakestraw Books in Danville; The Book Shop in Hayward; Sheila A. Grilli, Bookseller in Martinez; Orinda Books in Orinda; and Towne Center Books in Pleasanton. --Karen Schechner