To ban idiots who come into my shop

[nickelbabe]

and tell their children at full volume in front of other customers that "you can get that cheaper in Costco"?

I'm fucking fed up the back teeth of people doing that!!

Why don't you just fuck off to Costco then, and stop trying to lose me the precious very few customers I get????

beggars belief.

Oh, and leave Artemis alone! I admit that as a mother I want to slap him sill sometimes, but they're a good read:D

A friend of mine dreams of having a shop like yours. She was the dedicated children's bookseller at a chain in Scotland, and wept when she was made redundant. She ran groups and organised competitions. She read practically everything that came in so she could advise from knowledge. Top woman.

Cheers Jenai :)

Awwww you are far from us otherwise we could become your best customers. My DC have taken after me in my love of reading & I seem to be buying us each at least 1 book a week. We do borrow loads from the library but there is such a nice feeling in having a brand new book If we ever visit Sittingbourne we will hunt you down.

I currently have 8 children's books in my basket at Amazon, and after reading this thread I felt very guilty. I spent most of my teenage years and twenties in independent bookshops and I still treasure memories of the hours I spent browsing there.

So, as I haven't yet pressed "buy" I thought I would look at exactly the same books on your website. The total comes to £50.92. Amazon are offering them to me for £29.02.

As much as I sympathise I cannot justify spending an extra £21.90 for the sake of sentimentality.

I also don't understand the hostility shown by some people here against Costco. Costco do some excellent books - OP you know they do, you buy them to stock in your shop. The Lego book may well be available in Costco now as they start to sell their Christmas stock in August.

I really do feel for you - I wish things were different, and I don't know what the answer is, but I really don't think you can blame people for refusing to pay what they consider to be inflated prices.

As another poster suggested, the way ahead is probably to make your money on gift items etc. The loss of decent bookshops on the High Street saddens me and I think a lot of it has to do with the shoddy service in the chains. I can't even bring myself to go into WHSmiths.

Good luck, but don't blame people for doing exactly what you did when you bought your wedding food.

Wish we still had a local bookshop round here. Our much-loved store had to close last year, undercut by the supermarkets and Amazon. Such a shame - we've got a small Sainsburys that does a couple of dozen best-sellers and a WH Smiths where the staff couldn't care less and the shelves are so rammed you can't browse properly. (I imagine most people get their books online or at one of the mahoosive out of town supermarkets, but I miss being able to walk to the town centre with ds and go and buy a book.)

Nickel, next time we visit your part of the world (and we will, as we often visit near Whitstable) we will come and visit your shop. And have a and buy some books!

terrierist - thank you, I love you!

I shall try to come to your shop soon, too. :)

I would just like to point out that I have been to my local independently owned book shop and bought 2 books this morning

Have also been to my local small independently owned wool shop to buy some buttons, my local small independently owned art shop to buy some felt, my local small independently owned butcher to buy some sausages and my local small independently owned bakery to buy some bread. I also had a coffee in a small independently owned cafe, whilst reading a paper bought in a small independently owned newsagent.

I also went to Sports Direct to buy football boots for DS1

TheOldestCat thanks, I do try to make the kids feel welcome :)

(i also feel a little embarrassed when I know that people know I'm a MNer, but that's okay! )

ninny that's really sad :(
(but towards the end of november, there's every chance I might be serving in my pyjamas having not washed my hair )

oh, chiclet - don't worry about them damaging the books - like I always say, if I worried about that, I would have opened a different type of book.
If you're worried about it, I often have display copies that they can play with, or colouring sheets to distract them - i bet most shops would, if you asked. :)

thanks Lola. :)
when I worked at waterstone's, when the last harry potter book came out, we sold it at a profit of 17p per copy. :(

Biscuit - i understand that, i really do.
I think it's the difference between shopping online and coming into the shop - I think if you were in the neighbourhood and went into your local shop, you'd most likely buy a couple of the books you wanted from the shop (with the personal service etc) and then the rest from the cheaper online retailer - I haven't got a problem with that at all. :)
that way, we all win, you keep the local shop going, and you get something cheaper too.

Jemima - well done

"bullet
I do have 5 children and it.
It's a puffin one - £5.99 (remember free postage)
(and the chocolate if you're nice"

Brilliant .

I used to work in a music store and got sick of hearing how tesco etc were much cheaper! Now we are shut.....try getting yet jazz soundtracks specialist stuff in tesco now why don't ya!

terrierist - DH has just informed me that he picks up his post bags from your shop's store cupboard

Inspired by this thread I went to my local independent book shop today to buy some last minute birthday presents and had a very nice browse, chat and 10% off. I was surprised at the amount of sale books they had so it actually worked out cheaper than Amazon overall anyway.

But there was one not in stock so I decided to email nickelbabe rather than order it off them

Yes, Nickel, if I lived nearby I probably would use your shop for some of my purchases as you say. I would probably spend far more time and money there than I should!

Incidentally, I have just been to Costco to pick up some photos and they did indeed have to Lego sets - approx £11 each. More importantly for me, they had sets of 8 Julia Donaldson books for £10 so I won't be ordering them from Amazon after all.

Biscuit - ssshhhhhhh!

Sorry!

ooh, thank you Pel - that's lovely about your local shop too.

I've ordered that book for you, and I've also put one on order for shop stock.
:)

How can you ban them? Put a big sign on the door saying "No idiots"?
Seriously though, you can't compare costco with a "proper" bookshop, firstly costco is a cash & carry for members only, you are a specialist book retailer. You have to justify your higher prices by offering better service than costco.

- i like the big sign idea

thank you for your serious point, too :)

Nickel, I would love to say I am a perfect parent and that I never give in to pester power ...

I thought of something else today. We had a lovely bookshop near us that sadly closed recently when the owner retired. He sold newspapers as well as books and loads of people would go in to the shop to get papers. I'm presuming some of them also bought books.

Another thing that draws me into a shop is if it sells really nice birthday cards etc. I don't like the ones our local supermarkets sell and often go in to independent shops to buy them, even though they are a little more.

Something I'd also like is if I could get really good advice about what books are good for a particular age group. Another mum and myself were chatting this afternoon and neither of us had much of an idea about books our boys would like. We've been reading Roald Dahl to our son but are going to run out of books soon. I'd go to a shop where I could get really good advice on what he'd like.

Some local comment from me - we're just down the road in Faversham and I only heard about your shop on MN. Could you do some marketing here (am no expert - but infiltrate the NCT/ toddler groups/etc)?

Will have a think anyway and let you know. Will also start spreading the word...

Very sorry to not have read the whole thread as just having a quick browse tonight. But couldn't go without showing my solidarity for the small independent businesses.

We have a small shop and people come in to try on clothes and footwear so they can order it online from somewhere that doesn't have the high street overheads that we do. Nothing makes me want to shout FUCK OFF more.

I love my local bookshop, I love the fact the owner knows every book and knows us and what the dc would like.

I make an effort to shop at independent stores or else we'll be left with nothing but the supermarkets.

It depresses me so much to see people telling you to change your prices to match costco etc. We have been on the edge of loosing everything this year. People won't pay a small amount extra to keep the high street full of shops and have these things available. But then they'll complain when the shops go bust, look at woolies for example.

The best way for people to make their area more affluent is to shop local. It's not rocket science.

jaffa - i've avoided cards because we've got about 6 card shops in the town!
(everyone complains about that)

oh, yes, I love giving book advice :)

Cat - everyone keeps telling me I should have opened in faversham. I thought it would have been a cop-out because I wanted the shop in the town I live in, and Faversham does very well on its own. I have sent information to the schools in Faversham, and nothing came of it :(
I could send information out there. Problem is, I can't do much advertising, because I can't afford it - it costs £60 just to get a tiny tiny 10cm x 6cm advert in the local free paper for one week. I looked at distributing my christmas catalogue through royal mail, and it costs £500 per thousand (on top of the 1000 that you have to buy!)
DH takes them on his round, and a couple of the others of the posties that I know have done a couple of hundred, but that only covers the local area.

I will take on board the idea of NCT (i did advertise in their latest magazine, but i'm not sure how far out it goes), and the toddler groups. thank you :)

confuzzeled - i have to say, that since being an indie, I have used my local indies more for things that i can get there or elsewhere. Cos i'm also in the retail association, the ones that recognise me usually give me a discount (and i do the same for them)
I really wish i could drop my prices. I really do. But at the moment, I'm doing returns to try to get some money back on books that haven't sold in a while (or ever!), and I've cut back my buying to an absolute minimum.

My parcel arrived

We're currently having lots of fun blowing up the balloons and letting them whizz off around the room. The other goodies are wonderful too, thank you very much Nickel

Will have a look at the book once Ds is in bed.