Local bookstores adapt to competition
National chains, online sales force Columbia venues to get creative
By: Paul Bowers
Assistant Copy Desk Chief
Posted: 11/11/08
More than seven years after opening at its West Columbia location, Ed's Editions is still in business. The store still smells of old binding, and owner Ed Albritton still sits at the cash register with a ready wit and a view of Meeting Street.
Like other local independently owned bookstores, Ed's is in the process of adapting to a bookselling business transformed utterly by online sales and national chain stores.
"We knew that we were going contrary to the trend," Albritton said, reflecting on his decision to open a storefront in an age when the Amazon.com business model was becoming more prominent. "We felt like we could survive, and so far, we have. We're not rich, but we have a good store and a good following."
Living in the shadow of longtime literary institution Happy Bookseller's closing last month, some bookstore owners in the Columbia area are learning to deal with a shifting business climate.
A common trend among local stores has been specialization. Each store, it seems, has a certain niche cornered.
For Ed's, that niche is used books, especially nonfiction. Albritton keeps approximately 35,000 books in stock and has many rare, out-of-print editions.
"We don't have a lot of direct competition with the new bookstores," Albritton said. "In fact, we get a lot of referrals to our store from new bookstores."
Many smaller bookstores have taken similar routes. The demise of Happy Bookseller has been linked by many former customers to the arrival of Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million near its Forest Drive location. Rather than face the stiff competition presented by these nationwide franchises, however, some bookstore owners have found success in more narrowly defined markets.
Misty Clare, whose bookstore The Middle Way is located across the street Ed's, said she does not see herself in competition with anyone.
"I just think the universe is limitless and there's enough to go around," Clare said. "I don't really have a belief system that there's an 'us against them' kind of thing going on."
While Clare's business views may be unorthodox, her clarity of focus is a common theme among independent booksellers. Her original intent for the store was to solely sell books on spiritual topics.
"I don't have books on cooking. I don't have romance novels, things like that. I have books on angels; I have books on the power of your subconscious mind," Clare said.
The store's inventory includes titles such as "Fairies 101," "Feng Shui for Prosperity" and "A New Earth."
Serving another segment of Columbia's population is Libreria Cristiana Jesus Es Amor ("Jesus Is Love Christian Bookstore"), which specializes in Spanish-language Bibles and Christian study materials.
Brenda Gonzales, whose father Cupertino Gonzales opened the store one and a half years ago, is one of the strongest English speakers in the store.
"The main goal is to let people know the word for Jesus so that they can understand that Jesus is coming," Gonzales said. The store's focus is single-minded, with all its books printed in Spanish and relating to a Christian message.
Gonzales, whose family arrived from Mexico approximately eight years ago, said she sees primarily Mexican and Guatemalan customers in the family-run business. She estimates that the area surrounding the store has 10 to 12 Spanish-speaking churches.
The most popular items in the store, however, are the CDs, Brenda said. The small shop contains one row of books and three rows of Latin music, mostly shipped from Texas, California and Florida.
While independent Columbia bookstores tend to target narrow fields of interest, they have also expanded their product lines well beyond ink and paper.
Clare also offers homemade bath salts, candles from a Blythewood artisan and hand-woven free-trade scarves from Cambodia. Clare said she also runs a salon called Temple Beautiful in the back of her store, and one of her employees has offered feng shui classes.
"The concept was to have a spiritual bookstore, and then slowly it became a metaphysical store," Clare said.
Albritton said he foresees significant changes in his store's future. In order to keep up with a transforming industry, he plans to increase the store's online presence through sites such as Amazon and Advanced Book Exchange.
Although he has been selling through Amazon since its early days, he is still hesitant to invest himself fully in online ventures.
"I enjoy the contact with people," Albritton said, explaining his rationale for opening a physical storefront. "I mean, I could've sat in front of a computer screen all day and probably done a little better than I'm doing now, but I like the old-fashioned feel of a bookstore."
Albritton has begun setting up shelves in the front of his store where, for the first time, he will sell a selection of new books. He said he held off from the new books market while Happy Bookseller was open and that the two stores frequently referred customers to each other.
"I didn't feel like they needed any more competition," he said. In the upcoming months, Ed's Editions may also begin to serve Happy Bookseller's former role as a literary nexus, hosting book signings as early as January.
Certain markets, such as textbook sales, have high barriers to entry for local businesses. Aside from Barnes & Noble's University Bookstore at the Russell House, Addam's University Bookstore and South Carolina Book Store now belong to national companies.
Andy Shaffer, general manager at the University Bookstore, said his store offers a price matching guarantee and returns a portion of its profits to USC scholarship funds.
In the meantime, business moves along at independent bookstores across Columbia. And in the wake of a beloved store's passing, Columbia's book community looks to turn the next page.