bit quiet on the boards

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

everyone must be busy with their sales and posting:-D

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

Six reasons to visit Wonthaggi

Turns out The book shop is one of them

[2chappies]

That's great publicity so I hope you get more people in the door. :-x

[bookcellartasmania]

Happy new year rama & regular bookies.

I do miss the boards so plan to spend more time with you all over at the other discussion spot this year... all my "spare" time has been going in to garden restoration in the last few months while the books have been ticking along.

Christmas sales for us were good but not spectacular and mostly in the B&M rather than eB. Have been surprised that eb sales continue to trickle on in Jan as in previous years Jan has dropped off to zilch on eb.

Looking back on 2012 we owe a big thankyou to you rama for sharing your tv ad experience... it encouraged us to pursue that also. Our tv ad on TDT, the regional Ch10 channel across Tasmania,  was the single most effective piece of advertising we've done for The Book Cellar. Much cheaper than newspaper ads, far more effective and we know it worked because people tell us they have come in because they saw it.

Back to the topic... from the number of views vs. replies there must be a lot of lurkers out there... surely there are other booksellers with relevant experiences to share here? It's the give and take that made this forum so helpful, supportive and rewarding. All take, no give, won't leave much to be going on with.

All the best bookies for a rewarding 2013.

Cath (& Michael)

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

Glad to hear the tv ads worked for you too Cath & Michael.

Happy New Year to you too.

We haven't been approached by the new rep for Southern Cross - country channel ten yet this year, would have been good to be in the publics eyes while they were here in January because yes, tv does work.

Since Jan 1st, we've been running around with roller skates on trying to keep the shelves full and in the process have been able to empty out most of the surplus stock from our storage areas, YES!!! :^O

[bookcellartasmania]

Speaking of storage... we had a big clear out of our shed in Nov... after a massive yard sale in early Nov of all the surplus books that aren't good enough for the shop shelves or are just books that don't budge no matter what you do...all that book baggage that wasn't really handpicked for the bookshop, either online or B&M, but just came along with the various boxloads of books we've bought over the years. The yardsales do OK and people love a rummage, but they only clear the tip of the iceberg, & having done that for a couple of years now we decided the physical labour involved in cleaning, packing, sorting, labelling, moving, repacking, losing things, cluttering up of the shed with books worth very little, falling over boxes, providing luxury homes for mice & spiders, etc etc just wasn't worth it.... so we pulled out about 20 boxes of the absolute dross for recycling, then phoned up a charity in Launceston who were more than happy to come & collect the 150 plus boxes remaining, provided they weren't textbooks or ex-library... which they weren't.


It was a tough decision, but 100% the best thing to have done. We've got the shed down to a fighting weight and can keep on top of books coming in.

C

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

sounds like when I got a 13m skip in + took 13 ute loads to the the recycling bins at the tip.

Managed to empty the 6 car shed eventually.

We now make sure we recycle it before it hits the shed, ie: opp shop or recycle bins, we have 2 large recycle bins.

Preferably we try to get our bookies to take back the books we don't require, but if you get a good haul of stuff, you accept the rubbish as a matter of course.

Some people only bring in stuff we chuck and they don't take very kindly to our not wanting their precious books they've been holding onto for the last 20 years.

Business has been brisk as it usually is this time of the year.

Desperately need a few good book sales to re-stock before Easter now B-)

[booksnpapers]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I haven't been around.  Busy of eBay, but am now back and listing a few books.  I have changed my name from booksngolf as we don't sell golf clubs anymore and I still have loads of old newspapers and mags to sell.

Anyway, hope to see you on the boards from time to time.

C

[bookcellartasmania]

Stocktaking... what a joy. two solid days down with two of us at it. Should be done by elevenses tomorrow. Why can't we just sell everything instead, sigh.

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

nearly forgot I've got to do a stocktake lol.

Now to work out if the value of the stock has gone up or down.

Easy, we dumped 1000's of books and also dropped the prices an average of 20% to compete with ebooks and the cheaper BigWedgie prices.

[straybooksoz]

I don't have enough stock to warrant one. 🙂

However - is it stock at cost or perceived value?