c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) At Skia, a new Christian bookstore in Bentonville, Ark., there are comfortable chairs, racks of apparel, a coffee and smoothie bar, and a full corner of the store dedicated to building, of all things, skateboards.
“It takes a little while to put together a skateboard, maybe 15 minutes or so,” said store co-owner Bill Beyer. “It gives us an opportunity to talk with the kids and really develop relationships with the kids while we’re doing that.”
Meeting customers where they are has become the mantra of the Christian retail industry as its stores face stiff competition from big-box chains and online retailers. With more stores closing than opening each year, industry layoffs and a key publisher staying away from this week’s annual International Christian Retail Show in Orlando, Fla., retailers and publishers say innovation is key to thriving in the current business climate.
In a survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere, stores, publishers and other Christian companies are cutting back and offering new products to appeal to consumers.
“Christian stores used to be destination stores because … they had the dominant selection of product in the marketplace,” said Bill Anderson, president and CEO of CBA, the organization that hosts the annual show and used to be known as the Christian Booksellers Association.
“And we are teaching them they still must have that, but that alone is not enough. … To be a destination store, they have to offer that customer a total shopping experience that is rich and rewarding in and of itself.”
The CBA itself is facing changes, with the decision this year by Thomas Nelson, the nation’s largest Christian publisher, not to attend the annual CBA expo. Instead, Thomas Nelson held an all-expenses-paid event for its key retailers in April at its headquarters in Nashville, Tenn.
Michael Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson, said CBA’s show became “a very ineffective, very expensive way to reach a very few customers,” because his company has regular contact with 95 percent of its accounts outside of the show.
Last April, Thomas Nelson cut about 10 percent of its staff, after previously deciding to halve the number of new titles it introduces this year.
“You don’t talk to any retailers that are saying what we need is more books,” said Hyatt, whose company sells about 35 percent of its products through Christian retailers. “What they’re all saying is we need better books.”
Zondervan, another big Christian publisher owned by HarperCollins, cut five executive positions and a dozen others as a part of streamlining of its organization in May.
At the Orlando show, it introduced “Symtio,” a digital merchandising system that it hopes will counter competition from online and secular booksellers. Starting this fall, in-store customers can buy a gift card for the book they want and download it at home. They can read it on a computer or a device like the Sony Reader, or listen to an audio book on an MP3 player such as an iPod.
“People are familiar with doing it with music already but it’s not been done with traditional publishing,” said Verne Kenney, executive vice president of sales for Zondervan.
“The beauty of this system is it does not require a retailer to make an investment in technology in order to be able to offer a digital solution.”
The product also will be used by Baker Publishing Group and offered to other publishers, Kenney said.
Even publishers of Christian greeting cards are facing transitions. DaySpring Cards said last month that it will eliminate 80 jobs at its headquarters in Siloam Springs, Ark. The move, part of a consolidation by parent company Hallmark, will leave the company with between 325 and 350 employees by fall, said DaySpring spokeswoman Brenda Turner.
Despite all the changes in companies selling and manufacturing products for Christian consumers, religious books continue to do well overall.
The Book Industry Study Group, a publishing trade association, reported in May that sales of religious books had an increase in net revenue of 6.3 percent last year _ a higher figure than the net revenue gain for all publishers of 4.4 percent over 2006.
Lynn Garrett, former senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly, said Christian retailers that have survived the closings and reinvented themselves have found ways to distinguish their stores from their secular competitors.
“You might find the newest title of a superstar Christian author at Wal-Mart or at a Borders or Barnes and Noble, but you won’t find all of their titles,” she said. “That’s something that the Christian stores can excel at.”
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