Chop Suey (Photo by Eli Christman)
David Schuman remembers the customer who purchased a large order of books when the COVID-19 crisis first struck. “I remarked that the books would help him quarantine from the virus,” says Schuman, owner of Book People bookstore. “And he replied, ‘Virus? What virus?’ ”
Inspired by the exchange, and fully aware of the reclusive reputation of bookworms, Richmond’s longest-running bookseller started hawking a fundraising T-shirt. It reads: “Book People: Helping Richmond Self Quarantine Since 1980.”
Anything helps. Sales are down 60% at the store, and while online orders have steadily picked up, it’s not enough. But Schuman is cautious about reopening the shop’s quirky cottage location on Granite Avenue. “I’m ‘wait and see,’ ” he says. “I’m pretty sure there is going to be that second wave. And we really don’t want to put our customers at risk.”
With fundraising gambits, home delivery options, curbside pickup, virtual book club events and new online ordering systems, Richmond’s independent bookstores are doing their best to adapt to an uncertain retail landscape in the wake of the pandemic.
“I had to learn online programming the week that all of this stuff started,” says Kelly Justice, owner of Fountain Bookstore, the longtime Shockoe Bottom shop that now sells online or by phone and offers curbside pickup. Fountain is known for its active book club network and author signings, and that has continued. “We wanted to maintain our community as best we could, so we converted all of our events to online events.” Justice says. “All four of our book clubs are online now.”
Justice is president of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, a trade group of hundreds of indie retailers in 11 states. She says that bookstores everywhere are scrambling to revamp their online presence. If there’s a silver lining at Fountain, it’s that its web-based literary offerings — such as June’s virtual appearance by New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh, a feed available through the Alliance — are reaching new customers.
Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore (Photo by Jay Paul)
The Little Bookshop is housed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss it space in Midlothian’s Sycamore Square. This homey 1,000-square-foot nook has attracted a steady clientele since it opened in 2016. “I was already pretty small compared to the others and was pretty lean and ran things on my own,” says owner Mary Patterson.
When the store closed in mid-March, Patterson, with the help of her son, began taking online orders and offering book deliveries. “It’s really our regulars that have kept us in business,” she says. “We’ve been able to give recommendations to people looking for something new, and they do order those books.”
One helpful service she’s used is bookshop.org, a new online platform that allows people to locate and order books from independent bookstores. Kelly Justice is also a fan. “I did not have it prior to this,” says Patterson, who reopened in June with customer limits and masks required. “Our online focus just ramped way up in March. That’s how we’ve stayed alive ... we’re still here, and we’re gonna make it.”
Since his store closed, Ward Tefft, the owner of Carytown’s Chop Suey Books, has been spending several hours a day making customer deliveries. “We take orders through email, through Instagram, over the phone and offer curbside pickup, too,” he says. “Our inventory is totally available. We’ll look through our used stuff for you and find what you need.”
The Little Bookshop (Photo by Jay Paul)
Chop Suey has been trying anything and everything to engage customers while in-store browsing is paused — like their Mystery Bags. “You pick an amount you want to spend, tell us what you like, and we’ll pick an assortment of books out for you,” he explains. The shop has also been holding Wednesday afternoon book club confabs on Zoom.
Tefft also presented the store’s first author signing in months with a “socially distanced” appearance by Richmond writer Rachel Beanland in July to promote her book, “Florence Adler Swims Forever.” But he says he’s not going to reopen until it is safe. “That means when the virus is gone or when we have [a vaccine],” he says. “I’m certain that with this reopening and relaxing, we’re going to spike again, and we’ll all be closing.”
Velocity Comics has reopened its physical store after months of selling through phone orders and emails and offering pickups. “Customers are required to wear masks, and no more than four at a time are allowed inside,” says co-owner Ron Gandy. “It’s really not that big of a problem because we’re a small store, and we don’t usually have crowds.”
Those who can’t reopen at present are trying to adapt. “When the schools closed, it really hit us hard,” says Jill Stefanovich, owner of children’s bookstore BBGB Books. “Our bread and butter is book fairs,” she says. “We go to schools all over Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico and hold them. It’s like 60% of our business.”
Stefanovich found out that the store could offer pickups and free local delivery, “but that’s not going to get us the quantity of sales we need to stay around.” The solution has been to build a virtual book fair, with more than 1,000 titles, at bbgbbooks.com/bookfair.
Stefanovich has tentative plans to reopen BBGB later this summer by appointment. But, like many local booksellers right now, she’s treading lightly. “We’re using this time to figure out what the shop of the future looks like,” she says. “Any bookstore that’s not having that conversation right now is going to be in trouble.”
