The United Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, Tenn., plans to close all 38 stand-alone Cokesbury bookstores and 19 stores at seminaries and focus on selling online and through its call center, the Tennessean reported.
The stores will be shut down next year between January and April and affect some 185 full-time and 100 part-time employees.
Under what it is calling CokesburyNext, the publishing house intends to increase the staff and hours at its Nashville call center so that it will operate 24 hours a day, six days a week, and upgrade its website. It also plans to increase its sales reps to 40 from 13.
Amy Smith, associate to the president and publisher of the United Methodist Publishing House, called the changes "part of the evolution that bookstores are all experiencing. CokesburyNext is another chapter in an ongoing evolution as we adapt to needs of our customers."
Last year the publisher's sales rose 2%, to $86 million, with the stores accounting for a third of that. Still, stores have been a declining percentage of sales, Smith told the paper. "The cost to operate them have been increasing. They're no longer financially viable."
A recent customer survey found "more people reported shopping online and only 15% of its customers shopped exclusively in stores," the Tennessean wrote.
