In a number of cases, the digital format is more convenient not all, mind you. But now with stores selling physical books, Amazon might make the mistake of only measuring in-store purchases as a KPI for overall store performance. Instead, they should provide a very quick and easy way for people to purchase the digital versions of the books once they have browsed and located the items they want. The fact is, people actually like using Kindles, but purchasing from the Kindle can sometimes be a pain.
Using the storefront to help simplify the transaction would be a great tool. About the Author: Brent Yax. He rarely sleeps and is always working harder to stay on the cutting edge of how technologies and businesses can inter-operate most successfully, constantly pushing for new horizons. Related Posts. Microsoft Planner vs. Trello: Updated for Microsoft Planner vs. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Max Nisen. Sign up for notifications from Insider!
Stay up to date with what you want to know. Loading Something is loading. Email address. What will take Borders place? And there still seems to be a place for traditional bookstores — just not in the size and scope as they were. Last year, the number of independent bookstores in the U. But the reality is that people are increasingly turning to digital books.
However, last week, Tom and I finally met. By this time, Tom and I had already spoken through email and he had answered all of my interview questions digitally. And yet all the same I was nervous. But I love meeting booksellers in their element. There, you can learn so much about who they are and how they run their store. Plus, I love any excuse to go to a bookstore. I found Tom—wearing a Schuylkill t-shirt in honor of the river that crosses through Philly, where Tom is from— sitting beside the cafe on his laptop.
As two introverts, it took a second for us to warm up to each other. We talked shop and I snapped a picture for this piece on my phone that is slowly breaking I apologize if any of my photos are a bit blurry. He gestured for me to follow.
After ducking under some stairs, avoiding towers of cardboard boxes, navigating cob webs, and peering through the eerie, basement lighting, I somehow survived to tell the tale. My picture with my broken camera— attempts were made towards clarity. Through this delightful adventure, I got a feel for who Tom is as a person. Every bookseller is unique, but, in my opinion, Tom Beans is special. Furthermore, Tom is funny. He speaks casually— not in the high-brow tone some people may expect from a bookstore owner.
But I noticed he loves correcting people— again, not in a mean-spirited, I-am-smarter-than-you way— rather in the way a teacher likes to correct their students. No one gets into this business to make a lot of money. I just had to make that leap of faith that I knew what I was doing.
If I did, and apparently that was so, the money would come. When I asked if I could snap a picture of him for this piece, he replied in a bashful tone,. Rebecca Singer and Tom Beans. Tom not only brought years of experience to the table, but plenty of new ideas for changes to the store, for instance, adding new books to the shelves alongside the used, tossing out the large shelves, and replacing the older, harsh lighting with a more welcoming glow. When I asked Tom what he recommends all booksellers do to make their businesses stronger, he reported that atmosphere has a huge impact on sales and traffic.
Understanding the "Science" of retail is really important too. My first visit coincided with an uncertain time in my life. Nervous and terrified, my husband and I visited Bend for the first time in May not as tourists but as interviewees. Our home in the hilly, humid, maze of Pittsburgh, PA felt very far away as we wandered the high desert of Bend. My husband had been laid off in Pittsburgh just a few months prior and we were desperate for work anywhere we could find it.
But moving across the country, thousands of miles from all of our friends and family? That was a step into the unknown. As newlyweds and myself a recent college graduate, this life change aligned with an already uncertain moment in our lives. I fell in love at the door— that adorable Dutch door that felt so much like Appalachia, where I was born and raised. So small a detail, but it clicked with me.
Local farmers set up their stalls, covering every available inch of downtown Knoxville with bright wildflowers, sweet, yellow corn, ripe, red tomatoes, fresh veggies, golden honey, and wicker baskets woven from hand. Orange-clad shoppers mill about, inevitably waving at friends, chatting with strangers. Banjos play on the main stage and bluegrass music wafts through the air. Although your feet clap against hot, city pavement, you know you are standing in green Appalachia.
In the cool shade of an overhanging, you spot a green sign above you: Union Ave Books. Broad stretches of window reveal the treasure inside— a bustling bookstore. Scout and Union Ave Books owner, Flossie. As you push open the glass door, you are immediately engulfed in shelves of new books, but not in a claustrophobic sense. The high-ceilings above you make it feel almost like a holy place.
Bright, white lights reach down from above, akin to a skylight. The shining hardwood floors guide you past the cashier stand and underneath a yawning arch— a recent extension of the store. On the walls all around you are posters and decor capturing East Tennessee, the Smoky Mountains, and the local college football team, the Volunteers.
Go Vols. Readers of all ages wander the stacks. Children rush to and fro filling the store with a youthfulness foreign to many such spaces. A hint for what? A scavenger hunt put on by downtown Knoxville. But I do remember a trip to Union Ave Books feeling like a treat. In my mind, although they sold used books as well, it was the place you went for a new book. Not sure why. I was maybe fourteen years old. Perhaps fifteen. In those years, like most teenagers, my future stretched out before me through a thick fog; I had no clue what I really wanted to do yet, nor who I wanted to become.
But holding a hardbound copy of my favorite book at the time, Crime and Punishment , felt momentous, like an invisible hand pointed down the road towards what was to come. If you are from the south, or any rural area, you know that a bookstore can have a huge impact on how you see your future, your potential, your options. The titles lining the walls of Union Ave Books whispered of secrets from beyond the Smoky Mountains, and beyond the life I had been told I had to lead.
I have to believe that, somehow, Union Ave Books helped form the writer and reader I am today— miles and miles from East Tennessee. Earlier this month, I returned to Knoxville for a brief stay. When you talk with Davis, you immediately gather a sense of weightiness— the importance of bookstores, booksellers, and literary community.
Laced in his every word is a brilliant sense of magnitude. Every detail of the bookstore, every choice booksellers make, every exchange between the staff and customers carries longitudinal meaning that taps into the large-scale framework of what bookstores are culturally, physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
And I think in some ways their vision is, I mean, having access to a new book. It sounds funny, but it has a very pure function in the south. The excitement of being in a place like this is that it provides a newness to customers, to people, to readers.
And it gives them a chance to validate that there are other ideas that they can interact with and this is a place where they can access them. And so that needs to be kept alive. His sentences weave and wind like this often, as a river does. The store was flooded with customers. Davis gave me an apologetic smile, but the thing you learn quickly when you work in a bookstore is that booksellers— the owners particularly— are probably some of the busiest people on the planet.
I never take offense to a busy bookseller. Quite the opposite. Content to take a backseat when she deserves to be at the head of the table. Despite her schedule, Flossie was happy to answer my questions digitally, so I sent them via email and got to hear things from her perspective as well.
When I asked Flossie what she would tell her younger self, with all she knows now, she said,. Enjoy successes when they happen. That alone paints a pretty clear picture of Union Ave Books and Flossie herself. Flossie McNabb is the kind of bookseller who has seen it all. Davis-Kidd had, at one point, four locations around Tennessee, the last one closing in It was one of my favorite bookstores in Knoxville, and I was sad to see it go by the time I was in high school at West High, which was also just down the road.
It reminded [her] of the creaky floors and large windows of the furniture store [that her parents owned growing up] and of being in a place where people window shopped as they strolled by. And, over the years downtown, Union Ave Books has created a strong literary community.
They attend more events and buy more books. We see the same people a lot. We have really loyal customers. And this brings us to the heart of the thing. And community is a two-way street.
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