New chapter for bookshops with new trading environment
AS retailers began to open their doors last week for the first time since March, it’s no exaggeration to say it was in a different world. While the numbers look encouraging, the spectre of Covid-19 has not gone away and we must all now embrace our new ‘socially distanced’ reality.
Businesses opening their doors are now forced to factor in things which previously would never have crossed their minds - strict limits on customer numbers, socially distanced queues, hand-sanitising stations, new plexi-glass screens for staff.
Bookshops find themselves in truly uncharted waters. With the focus on businesses getting customers in and out as quickly and safely as possible, this is the antithesis of what we love about bookshops. For any bookworm, a big part of the joy is spending time in the shop, leafing through books before deciding upon your next read. While in some shops browsing is frowned upon, it’s still encouraged in bookshops, although proper hand hygiene is vital.
‘I suppose the way things are at the moment, we’ve had to make some changes and remove our seating,’ said Store Manager at The Book Centre Charlotte El Moussati.
‘Unfortunately we do have to encourage people to move on a little quicker now, whereas previously they could grab a book or magazine and sit down and have a read or go up to our café. We actually have our third floor completely closed off for now. Of course people can still browse and read the back of a book, it’s no problem. In general though we’ve found that people, having been in lockdown for a few weeks, have a good idea of what they’re looking for when they come in to us.
While during lockdown, the appetite for reading increased as people sought a way to pass the long hours, the option of visiting local bookshops was off the table. For independent bookshops there was only one option. Go online and try attempt to go head to head with the Amazons of this world.
‘The Lock-Down was a scary prospect for bookshops,’ said owner of Red Books in Peter’s Square Wally O’Neill. ‘We were only open for half a year in a precarious industry. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if we would ever reopen when the order to shut came.’
In an unexpected twist, Wally found that the shop was kept busy with online sales, mainly thanks to an incentive from An Post which, for the first time, allowed small shops to compete with Amazon.
‘The An Post deal was essential to our survival, as was the incredible support that we received from our regular customers.’ he said. ‘The orders, offers of help and kind messages meant everything. We always had a great community around the shop. The lockdown has changed things significantly. We found a lot of lapsed readers returning to books with a passion and have been inundated with messages from readers who swear that books have helped them through this difficult period.’
Similarly, The Book Centre had seen online orders increase.
‘Initially we were doing a “boot drop” service, where we’d drop people’s orders to the boot of their car,’ said Charlotte. ‘Then our parent store in Waterford worked around the clock on getting things out for the website. There has been a demand and people were also looking for things like jigsaw puzzles and games as well as their books and magazines.’
Both The Book Centre and Red Books have had to limit the amount of customers in store at any given time and one-way systems have been put in place to ensure customer safety and compliance with social distancing. Red Books are also offering appointment browsing and a kerb-side ‘click and collect’ service.
‘Its not ideal,’ Wally concedes. ‘But it’s up to everyone to make the best of this situation and try to live and work in a manner that protects people while offering some sort of normality too.’