Making It Work

Ideally, it is not the store owner's job to manage the store's day-to-day operation and ring up sales. That is the job for the store manager, assisted by store clerks. The owner's role is to ensure that the store is being well managed but also to develop relationships outside the store. Unlike conventional retail where product is purchased from wholesale vendors, the owner must ensure a steady supply of product coming from various sources such as estate sales and consigners.

The bookstore of the computer age exists within a rapidly evolving business environment that requires the use of what are broadly referred to as "systems". Even though necessary to the successful operation, these are typically beyond the scope of a bookstore owner, manager, or clerk.

Our parent company will manage these functions, hovering over the stores like a helicopter mom.

• First, there is the matter of providing internet access, phone service, email and instant messaging to the outside world and the store's internal computer network. Unlike a typical small business or store, these links are more complex and reliability is more crucial to our operation.
• Second, an informational website. This is not simply a "brochure" for the public, but a highly dynamic and interactive site geared to take much of the communications load off of store management.
• Inventory management that is multi-locational and with multiple points of access, while enabling fairly instant retrieval of product for customer reservation or shipping fulfillment.
• Bulk shipping management
• Consigner and Store Credit Accounting and Tracking
• Incentive-based employee payroll and tax reporting
• POS - Point of sale with instantaneous SKU creation that simultaneously updates online listings with in-store transactions and vice-versa.
• Lease management and New Store Setup

To understand even what some of these functions are, let's first look at how the store operates from day-to-day.