ABACUS-18 Financial Benchmarking Survey Underway

The submission period for ABACUS-18, the American Booksellers Association’s annual financial benchmarking survey, is now open. On Monday, May 6, ABA member bookstores received an e-mail from Michael Becher, of Industry Insights, with instructions on how to access this year’s survey. The subject line of the e-mail, which was sent to the primary contact at all main store locations, was “ABACUS-18 Benchmarking Survey.” (Booksellers are encouraged to check with their colleagues or in their spam folder if they did not receive the e-mail.)

The deadline for submitting to ABACUS-18 is Wednesday, June 12.

ABACUS is a free, exclusive member benefit for participating bookstores. The customized reports and online tools that reporting stores receive in return for filling out the survey provide a full picture of a bookstore’s financial performance, presented with benchmarking information across a number of categories, including sales volume, profitability, and market size. In addition to the detailed overall and store-specific reports, ABACUS’ online tools allow participating stores to generate additional dynamic reports.

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, and
• 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.

“I am not exaggerating when I say that ABACUS provides unparalleled bookstore financial information — and that it makes this data relevant and actionable to your business,” said ABA President Robert Sindelar, of Third Place Books, with three locations in the Seattle area. “Join the ABACUS community. You will not regret it, not for a second. And the more bookstores that participate in ABACUS, the stronger the report will be.”

This year, ABA will again be working to compile and create the ABACUS report with Industry Insights, of Dublin, Ohio, a company that has worked with associations for more than 35 years in preparing studies of business demographics, operations information, and financial ratios. In compiling the data and preparing individual reports, no one from ABA ever sees any store’s individual data, which is only available to select staff at Industry Insights and kept strictly confidential.

Booksellers with any questions about ABACUS are encouraged to contact ABA’s Dan Cullen or Industry Insights’ Michael Becher.