![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
second-hand books
I seem to have shifted (at least in the short term) to doing two days at the Red Cross (though it's more like a half day on Fridays). The manager has allowed me to start sorting all the books that were packed into boxes, and, as I suspected, as soon as I started going through them I was able to save some space by binning at least a quarter of them. Tatty old ex-library paperbacks aren't going to be bought by anyone, neither are out of date reference books, etc. She's also going to try and make sure that no one else prices non-fiction (though, I don't much mind other people pricing cookery/gardening because you can't go far wrong there). Some books have been very badly mis-priced recently. I rescued a collected set of about ten military history paperback books which had been put out at a fiver for the whole box. I've already sold one of them at £2.50 and another at £2... Military history is one of our best selling subjects.
We've been making a lot of money on non-fiction this week, typically £30 - £40 a day. This is almost entirely due to the generosity of a local person who donated us about 50 books (and a load of leaflets) on local history, all in good condition.
The only subject that sells better in our shop than military history is local history. I've been pricing these very aggressively from 50p for leaflets, up to £15 for rarer books on specific subjects with an average somewhere around £5-£6. They're going like hot cakes.
It's annoying when other staff over-price books (they usually have the quaint idea that new-looking biographies of celebrities are worth more - they aren't. There are so many copies printed that they lose value very quickly as the second-hand market is flooded), but when they under-price them, the book may be sold before you can change £2 to £5.
The problem in one sense is that I'm a victim of my own success. When I started at the Red Cross a couple of years ago, we had four shelves for books in the back room and we were often short of stock. Now, we have four times the number of shelves and we have loads of books. It's one of the basic rules of charity shops. People either donate to the shop that is easiest to get to - or the one closest to their heart - or the one that they feel will make best use of their donation.
If you have good stock on display and sell it at sensible prices, then you score on the third factor. We've definitely been getting more books donated through the shop in the last six months.
I added several features to the way the shop handles non-fiction (the credit goes to a couple of training courses I did with Oxfam many years ago). I sorted the books into subject categories (seems amazingly obvious, but it wasn't being done at the time). I actually went out and bought my own bookends and book rests so I could position some of the books to display the covers. This serves two purposes. Firstly, it makes the display a lot more attractive and encourages people to take a look. Secondly, it allows you to display high-value books or those with thin spines (as the latter are invisible on the shelf otherwise). Thirdly, it allows you to highlight where different subject areas are. If you have a section of gardening books, then you put a gardening book on a book rest in the middle of them.
My two remaining frustrations are that I don't have any shelf edge category labels (haven't been able to find any I like myself and the Red Cross keep vaguely promising to try and get some but haven't succeeded yet) and that I still don't have access to the detailed sales breakdown figures.
The till records every sale by category and date.
The data I need are weekly sales totals for fiction and non-fiction and the fiction/non-fiction sales as a % of total sales in the shop. Between the two, it's possible to work out what innovations in display or pricing are successful and which are not. You can also see whether things like window displays have an impact.
The manager is going on a course in March and getting data out of the till will probably be one of the things covered. The other thing she needs to study (I find it a little disconcerting that I know more about charity shop financial patterns than she does) is sales per six ft unit. Display units come in fixed sizes and for wall units in particular, you can calculate how much you're selling per unit and then look at whether you make more money on a unit of books/women's clothes/bric a brac and adjust your units accordingly.
So, I'm looking forward to seeing what she comes back with. She's fairly new to the job, but she's well-organised and I like working with her.
We've been making a lot of money on non-fiction this week, typically £30 - £40 a day. This is almost entirely due to the generosity of a local person who donated us about 50 books (and a load of leaflets) on local history, all in good condition.
The only subject that sells better in our shop than military history is local history. I've been pricing these very aggressively from 50p for leaflets, up to £15 for rarer books on specific subjects with an average somewhere around £5-£6. They're going like hot cakes.
It's annoying when other staff over-price books (they usually have the quaint idea that new-looking biographies of celebrities are worth more - they aren't. There are so many copies printed that they lose value very quickly as the second-hand market is flooded), but when they under-price them, the book may be sold before you can change £2 to £5.
The problem in one sense is that I'm a victim of my own success. When I started at the Red Cross a couple of years ago, we had four shelves for books in the back room and we were often short of stock. Now, we have four times the number of shelves and we have loads of books. It's one of the basic rules of charity shops. People either donate to the shop that is easiest to get to - or the one closest to their heart - or the one that they feel will make best use of their donation.
If you have good stock on display and sell it at sensible prices, then you score on the third factor. We've definitely been getting more books donated through the shop in the last six months.
I added several features to the way the shop handles non-fiction (the credit goes to a couple of training courses I did with Oxfam many years ago). I sorted the books into subject categories (seems amazingly obvious, but it wasn't being done at the time). I actually went out and bought my own bookends and book rests so I could position some of the books to display the covers. This serves two purposes. Firstly, it makes the display a lot more attractive and encourages people to take a look. Secondly, it allows you to display high-value books or those with thin spines (as the latter are invisible on the shelf otherwise). Thirdly, it allows you to highlight where different subject areas are. If you have a section of gardening books, then you put a gardening book on a book rest in the middle of them.
My two remaining frustrations are that I don't have any shelf edge category labels (haven't been able to find any I like myself and the Red Cross keep vaguely promising to try and get some but haven't succeeded yet) and that I still don't have access to the detailed sales breakdown figures.
The till records every sale by category and date.
The data I need are weekly sales totals for fiction and non-fiction and the fiction/non-fiction sales as a % of total sales in the shop. Between the two, it's possible to work out what innovations in display or pricing are successful and which are not. You can also see whether things like window displays have an impact.
The manager is going on a course in March and getting data out of the till will probably be one of the things covered. The other thing she needs to study (I find it a little disconcerting that I know more about charity shop financial patterns than she does) is sales per six ft unit. Display units come in fixed sizes and for wall units in particular, you can calculate how much you're selling per unit and then look at whether you make more money on a unit of books/women's clothes/bric a brac and adjust your units accordingly.
So, I'm looking forward to seeing what she comes back with. She's fairly new to the job, but she's well-organised and I like working with her.
no subject
no subject
.
Firstly because it would fall off the shelf edge unless glued. I can't glue it as I need to move categories around depending on the stock we have.
Secondly, because it's deeper than the shelf edges, so would have a sharp corner exposed at then ends of the label.
What I really need is something that is held in position by the weight of the books and is easy to move around. (Or something magnetic that I can write on) I've seen what I want in the past, but don't know where to buy it.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Videos have mostly disappeared here, is it because only raising more than 25p a time for an inch of shelf space is not worth it?
What's the dwell time for difference classes of book?
no subject
Most shops don't stock videos now. We find that children's videos still sell as long as they're cheap. If you can shift them fast, then they may be viable. Things like old TV shows should go straight in the bin.
I calculate dwell time on a mixture of category, price and back stock.
Assuming we have plenty of back stock, I'll give roughly a week for every 50p of price. Most books are around the £2 mark and get a month. I often give military history an extra week. I may give less time to gardening books as we have so many of them (they'll be going on display in a week or two - no point in putting them on the shelf until people start working on their gardens).
Outsize books may get less time unless they are particularly valuable, simply because I only have one shelf tall enough for them. Outsize books worth £4 or more will get a slot on the display stand for a week to show off their covers.
If I haven't sold a book in the £30+ area after a few months then I'll take it off display for a few months and bring it back with a slight price reduction.
The really valuable ones, I don't discount at all. The right buyer always comes along in the end.
I generally try and price just under the cheapest equivalent copy on Amazon (unless there's only one copy at that price and then a big gap with lots of copies at a higher price). However, one does have to remember that postage is effectively part of the price and thus include that in the calculation. I usually only check the specialist stuff against Amazon (or ABE), but that can still be around 30-50 books a week that are worth checking. (It's very useful to be able to tell people who complain about the price that it will cost them more second-hand on Amazon)
There's also something very satisfying (though sadly one never has the person there to rub their nose in it) about selling a book when someone the week before has ranted at some poor member of staff that the book is far too expensive.
Though I think we get less complaints on that score than we used to. People are getting used to the fact that while most of our books are a couple of quid, we will put sensible prices on books that are worth a lot of money. (you still get the occasional person who assumes that charity shops are there to sell things cheaply to them, rather than to raise money to help people who are worse off than they are)
no subject
Here Red Cross is not interested in book at all and I am ashamed to tell you that whan I tried to give them really nice and new clothes, shoes, coat and jackets, even three new suits after my husband, they were very rude and discouraged me totally. They are all gone now, given to my English speaking friend who is is a very bad financial situation and accepted everything with pleasure. However I am sad that this Red Cross office in the town prefers paperwork to real help to those who are in a need of it.
Also I admire your logical mind, this is a pleasure to read!
As for the labels, we have a special printer in the library, it produces any text...I can´t make a lot of them but if I can help with some...they can be sticked to a shelf. I only need the text and I will print it for you.
no subject
Is it something that anyone would want? It would be heavy to post, but it looks very interesting.
Our Red Cross is a dedicated shop, it sounds like yours is an office and would not be able to store/sell stuff.
Are your shelf labels magnetic? Can they be moved from one shelf to another?
no subject
no subject