In Park Rapids, Minn., Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery was closed for just over seven weeks during the state's stay-at-home order, reported owner Sally Wizik Wills. Since reopening on May 20, the store has required masks for all customers and has been operating at a limited capacity. There are also plexiglass shields around the counters, social-distancing signs on the carpet, and new cleaning and sanitizing protocols for staff.
Wills noted that her store is in a popular vacation area, and since her county actually had zero confirmed cases of Covid until "relatively late," there were many visitors to the area. Despite that, sales were down "dramatically" over the summer, which Wills attributed to there being no in-person events.
She and her team have been "thrilled and humbled" by the number of friends and customers who have rallied around the store this year. During the stay-at-home order, people sent money to be put on their accounts, and let it "sit there for us to use." Online sales increased dramatically, with Wills noting that because the Park Rapids is a vacation area, many of her regular customers are "scattered across the country for much of the year."
During the pandemic, the store has started offering free local delivery, curbside service, subscriptions and personal shopping, and Wills anticipates that they'll continue to offer these things after life returns to normal. All four of the store's book groups are now meeting on Zoom, and the summer women's group has decided to continue meeting during the winter, thanks to Zoom.
The store required customers to wear masks roughly three months before the state issued a mask mandate. That has had unexpected consequences, given how politicized mask wearing has become in many places, but many of Wills's customers "keep telling us how grateful they are that we require masks, and that they feel safe in our store." She added that the store has a big sign on the front door saying: "Welcome! Masks Required. No Whining."
Beagle and Wolf has also been fortunate to receive a number of grants and loans, but, Wills continued, she and her staff are "tired," doing "more with fewer people, and we're wearing out." She'd like to hire, but it is proving very difficult to find candidates. The team has tried to keep a sense of humor, including the aforementioned front door sign.
When it came to ordering for the holidays, Wills and her team approached it cautiously. They brought in a lot of titles from the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association holiday catalog, and ordered heavily on A Promised Land by Barack Obama. They also brought in more sidelines, which is a category they cut back on during the summer.
Beagle and Wolf began encouraging customers to shop early in October; Wills said the ABA's material was "very helpful." November sales were up dramatically, and December has gotten off to a similar start. She had expected to see a lull between the early shoppers and the "perennial procrastinators," but there hasn't been one. The store's top sellers, along with A Promised Land, have included This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger and Intimations by Zadie Smith.
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Danielle Hulton, owner of Ada's Technical Books & Cafe in Seattle, Wash., reported that her store is currently open Tuesdays through Sundays for limited hours and with a very limited capacity. No more than eight people are allowed in at a time, and she and her team permit 30 minutes of in-store shopping. All customers are required to wear masks and sanitize their hands before browsing.
The cafe side of the business is offering food and coffee for takeout only, and the menu has been altered to focus on more takeout-friendly and heat-at-home items. Hulton added that the new handpies on the cafe menu have been a hit, and the cafe now has outdoor tables with a pop-up covering.
Hulton said she and her team have been loving the support they've seen in the form of online sales. Ada's has had an online store for 10 years, and this has been by far the bookstore's busiest holiday season in terms of online shopping. She hopes that high rates of online buying continue even after the pandemic ends.
Hulton said the store bought holiday titles much later in the year than normal, "because it honestly snuck up on us." The team also purchased less, and Hulton noted that though December has been busy, sales are still down. Some of the biggest sellers of the holiday season so far have been the coloring book F*** Off, Coronavirus, I'm Coloring by Dare You Stamp Co., An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi and Alejandro Giraldo, Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle and The 99% Invisible City by Kurt Kohlstedt and Roman Mars. --Alex Mutter