Christian Retailing

Retail sees job gains in August in a ‘reluctant economy’ Print Email
Written by Christine D. Johnson   
Monday, 09 September 2013 10:21 AM America/New_York

MatthewShay-NRF-WebThe National Retail Federation (NRF) calculated retail industry job gains at 43,600 in August, with marked increases in clothing, general merchandise and electronics stores. However, June, July and August combined was the weakest three-month stretch of job growth in a year, the Associated Press reported.

“The economy continues to sputter along,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “Employers and retailers are adding to their payrolls and ranks, but still remain guarded. The business community is hiring, yet waiting for stronger signs of sustained economic growth before extending too many job offers.”

Read more...
 
Stores invited to participate in 9/11 ‘You’ll Get Through This’ simulcast Print Email
Written by Christine D. Johnson   
Monday, 09 September 2013 10:00 AM America/New_York

MaxLucado-WebThomas Nelson, CBA and the Salvation Army are inviting Christian retail stores to participate in the “You’ll Get Through This: A Night for Hope and Remembrance” event with Max Lucado on Sept. 11. Stores were invited to host the simulcast event for a $149 discounted price.

At the one-night event, Lucado will share the message of his new book, You’ll Get Through This—releasing tomorrow from Thomas Nelson—live from the Salvation Army Theatre in New York City.

Read more...
 
Study: Retailers need improvement in three key areas Print Email
Written by Jeremy Burns   
Friday, 06 September 2013 05:36 PM America/New_York

twitter_CFI_logo_newRetailers need improvement in pricing, checkout process and store associates, according to a survey conducted by CFI Group—a customer satisfaction technology and analytics firm. The survey did find that retailers’ physical store and online presence were meeting customer expectations, however.

The ongoing, benchmark study was conducted to gain an understanding of how satisfied retail customers are today—focusing on intent to make repeat purchases, develop an affinity toward a brand and recommend retailers to peers.

Read more...
 
Ongoing field sales representation decline hurts independent Christian retailers Print Email
Written by Jeremy Burns   
Friday, 06 September 2013 02:21 PM America/New_York

Industry cutbacks in tough economic times make staying current with the latest and greatest product ‘very difficult’ for stores

In an uncertain economy, with digital distribution of e-books and music coupling with online retail giants, one ongoing issue has made the work of brick-and-mortar Christian stores even more challenging: the decline of sales representative coverage for independent stores.

Part of this development stems from the fact that more Christian retail stores are joining marketing groups like Parable and Munce, while others are forced to close up shop because of high overhead costs and lagging sales. Publishers and vendors have been forced to cut back on field sales representation, and chains and stores joined to large marketing groups are the most cost-effective places to spend much of those vendors’ valuable man-hours.

Independent stores not tied to marketing groups often are left on their own to find their way through the myriad catalogs and collections of their various suppliers.

VickiGeist“It is very difficult,” said Vicki Geist, co-owner of Cedar Springs Christian Stores in Knoxville, Tenn., and new CBA board member. “We have to see what’s new on our own.”

Despite the fact that Cedar Springs is “one of the bigger stores,” Geist said that the “music reps have cut back,” and they “haven’t seen a Tyndale sales rep all year.” 

With cutbacks in those companies, she recognizes that the decreased number of sales reps remaining “can’t possibly see all the stores.”

The cuts were not a one-time occurrence either, as the number of sales reps is continuing to decline. Damascus Road Christian Books in Sacramento, Calif., has only been in business for three years, but even in that time, owner Telly King has noticed a drop in sales rep visits.

“They’re having to schedule things months and weeks in advance,” King said of the companies sending representatives. “If I couldn’t get things scheduled with a rep during the window they’re in the area, it could easily be three or four months before I get another chance.”

It’s not all bad news, though. For some store owners, the very technological revolution that has caused so many issues for the retail marketplace as a whole has also offered a helpful method of assuaging some of the difficulties caused by the present dearth of field sales reps.

“It’s kind of a mixed bag,” said Bill Ballou, owner of The Solid Rock, a Christian store that has been serving Kearney, Neb., for 40 years. Sales rep visits “used to be how [companies] would introduce their products. You didn’t get a catalog in the mail.”

Located in a relatively small community, the store would sometimes miss new releases since it didn’t get the best sales rep coverage even before the current decline. 

“With fewer sales people, there are more emails and more online presence,” Ballou said.

As many consumers and retailers alike have found, the Internet can be the great equalizer when it comes to staying informed. More and more, cost-cutting vendors and independent booksellers are turning to their online relationships and databases to compensate for the lack of in-person visits.

“The ones that we have, they are very good,” King said of her sales reps, with whom she communicates between visits via email and phone. “They understand the layout of our store, and they’re pretty good at letting me know what’s going to work.”

With limited coverage, however, “It’s a little harder,” she admitted. 

That sentiment seems to be the prevailing one, even as a greater presence in digital catalogs and online communication helps to blunt the effects of the reduction in rep visits.

“It’s just not the same,” said Geist. Though email can help independent bookstores stay in contact with their reps, it can’t truly replace “looking over the product, talking about the product and discussing what we can do to promote the product” in person with sales reps. 

 
Thief in the Night’ filmmaker Russ Doughten dies Print Email
Written by Eric Tiansay   
Friday, 06 September 2013 02:20 PM America/New_York

RussDoughten‘Father of the Modern Christian Movie’ saw 6 million decisions for Christ worldwide through his evangelistic films

Christian filmmaker Russ Doughten Jr., best known for the 1970s’ end-times thrillers A Thief in the Night and A Distant Thunder, died Aug. 19 at his home in Carlisle, Iowa, after a lengthy cardiac-related illness. He was 86. 

Known as the “Father of the Modern Christian Movie,” the founder of Russ Doughten Films was behind more than 150 projects that led to more than 6 million decisions for Christ around the world.

“Our founder, good friend and mentor has gone home to be with the Lord,” said a Facebook post on the Russ Doughten Films page this week. “We here at Russ Doughten Films will miss him, and we will strive to uphold his vision of spreading the gospel through films.”

Doughten was also the founder of Mark IV pictures and, with Donald W. Thompson, of Heartland Productions. He started making evangelistic movies in the 1950s, and nearly all of his films were shot in his home state of Iowa. 

Although he worked on secular films—most notably as producer and director of The Blob, the 1958 sci-fi/horror classic with Steve McQueen in his first lead role—Doughten made his mark with the “Thief in the Night” series, which dramatizes the rapture of the church and the struggles of a small band of believers against an increasingly hostile worldwide Antichrist dictatorship.

Doughten appeared in all four films—A Thief in the Night (1972), A Distant Thunder (1978), Image of the Beast (1980) and The Prodigal Planet (1983)—as the Rev. Matthew Turner, a survivalist who has an elaborate chart of the end-times events, but does not fully believe in the Bible. 

The National Religious Broadcasters presented Doughten with the Milestone Award in 2002 for 50 years of achievement in communicating the gospel through movies.

Doughten helped form the Christian Film Distributors Association and was instrumental in launching the Christian Film Producers Association. He also established Mustard Seed International, a ministry that seeks to spread the gospel through translated films. 

Doughten is survived by his wife, Gertrude; three of his four sons; four of his five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

 
Zondervan to relocate offices within Grand Rapids Print Email
Written by Jeremy Burns   
Friday, 06 September 2013 02:18 PM America/New_York

HarperCollins Christian division will be sole occupant of new location

HarperCollins Christian Publishing announced today the relocation of its Zondervan publishing offices to a new building less than five miles from its current headquarters. This transition from the Patterson Drive location echoes Zondervan’s previous commitment to remain in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the company has been based since its 1931 founding.

MarkSchoenwald-New“Our commitment to have a presence in Grand Rapids remains strong, and this new location will bring new opportunities for the future,” said Mark Schoenwald, president and CEO of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. 

The publisher signed a multi-year lease as the new building’s sole occupant, and will begin retrofitting plans immediately for its new home at 3900 Sparks Drive SE. Construction is expected to begin in the fall.

Zondervan moved to its current offices in 1992, and shares the building with the corporate headquarters of Family Christian Stores. An earlier report indicated that Family plans to stay in the building. 

Zondervan recently sold its former warehouse and distribution center in Grand Rapids. The company laid off 75 employees last summer when it vacated its warehouse and distribution center. The 395,000-square-foot office and distribution center once used by Zondervan will be divided into two segments—a 200,000-square-foot industrial building and a 100,000-square-foot office building, according to its new owner, Franklin Partners, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

The Patterson Drive lease will expire Jan. 31, 2014. In July, the company notified its employees that it would not be renewing its lease.

 
Thomas Nelson distribution center up for sale Print Email
Written by Eric Tiansay   
Friday, 06 September 2013 02:17 PM America/New_York

ThomasNelson_betterParent company’s plan calls for closing the Nashville facility

HarperCollins Christian Publishing has placed Thomas Nelson’s 277,000-square-foot distribution center in Nashville up for sale.

HarperCollins Christian Publishing Director of Corporate Communications Casey Harrell told Christian Retailing that no date had been set for the closing of the warehouse.

“As part of the announced strategic plan in November 2012, the company has begun marketing the availability of its distribution center,” Harrell said. “Last year, it was released that in order to better align with HarperCollins Publishers’ global print platform and supply chain agreement, we would be closing the facility during the winter of 2013. 

“This does not apply to the corporate offices as they will remain the headquarters for HarperCollins Christian Publishing, which includes Thomas Nelson,” Harrell added. “We remain committed to our plan of a winter closure. Currently, we have 102 employees that work in the warehouse.”

Last fall, HarperCollins Christian signed an agreement with printing company R.R. Donnelley—which handles the majority of HarperCollins books—to provide warehousing and distribution services for all of its titles nationwide, reported Nashville’s The Tennessean.

 
Guest authors create ‘huge problem’ for church bookstores Print Email
Written by Jeremy Burns   
Friday, 06 September 2013 02:14 PM America/New_York

Poor communication and lack of clear administrative policies can lead to complaints, ‘diminish ministry’ of stores

A quiet conflict has been growing between Christian authors and church-based stores, one that has caused rifts  in relationships and cost stores more than pocket change through the years.

Many authors in the CBA marketplace undertake speaking engagements at churches in an effort to promote their message and increase their visibility. As with any author, one of the primary goals when going on a speaking circuit is to promote and sell their books. However, when the host church also has a store, the authors’ methods in achieving this goal can raise store staff’s hackles. The key point of contention is when authors bring their own copies of their books to sell, bypassing the on-site bookstore and sidelining existing ministries.

GeorgeThomsen“This is a huge problem, and is one about which I have heard numerous complaints from church bookstore managers,” said George Thomsen, former CBA chairman of the board and director of The Harvest Store at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif.

Thomsen sees the problem as “unique to CBA,” he said. “When an author does a book signing in an ABA store, or even a non-church CBA store, they are not selling and signing author’s copies of the book.”

In what should be a mutually beneficial arrangement for author and bookstore alike, most stores end up getting little to no bump in sales when authors bring their own products to sell.

“The whole purpose of the signing event is to increase sales of the book for the store,” Thomsen said. “The authors still derive a financial benefit on the royalties they receive from the sale of every book.”

Though this problem seems to be largely focused on authors, music artists can end up in disputes with the host church’s bookstore as well.

“Artists and authors who perform or speak at church events have all travel-related expenses paid by the church, and they usually are paid an honorarium,” he said. “However, when it comes to churches, artists and authors often want exclusive rights to sales on the day they are at the church.”

This practice can result in bad blood between the store, whose staff often hand-sell the author’s books, and the author.

“The bookstore commits to stock an author’s titles year round,” Thomsen said. “The bookstore promotes the product and contributes to the author’s notoriety and success.

“When the church invites the author to come, provides an opportunity for exposure to a large audience and pays them well to speak or perform, it seems unfair that the author then tells the store they cannot sell their product when they are there,” he argued. “It does not show that the author cares about or is willing to support that store that supports them year round.”

When confronted with aggressive agents booking the events, “churches give in because they think they have to,” Thomsen said.

There are ways to avoid this issue, though, and most of them start with the host church’s administration.

“Church store managers should inform their business administrators that they don’t have to accept this practice,” Thomsen said. “They need to know that this is not usual practice for the ABA stores, nor is it for non-church CBA stores.”

“It is OK to tell the author or artist that the bookstore will be handling all sales for the day,” he continued. “This should be acceptable to them as they still make a royalty on every book sold.”

Part of the solution could lie with CBA publishers whose authors and artists make up the bulk of the church event circuit.

“Publishers can insert language into authors’ contracts that precludes them from selling authors’ copies of their books at churches where a bookstore is on site,” Thomsen offered, adding that he believed at least one large publisher has already taken this step.

At present, however, most of the responsibility ultimately lies with the churches and authors who write and sign the contracts for the events.

“The issue reflects many church-store managers’ concerns about the disconnection between church-store mission and church leadership policy and action,” said Curtis Riskey, president of CBA. “It is difficult to resolve the issue without internal clarity about individual goals, mutual understandings and common alignment that drives decision-making.”

Some churches are already working together with their store ministries to combat this practice. For example, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas has adopted and maintained a policy that ensures that the products authors wish to sell at their event will be sold through the on-site store. They formalize this in the guest speaker contracts, thus making sure all parties are on the same page well before the event takes place. This also allows Prestonwood’s store to have sufficient stock of the author’s works on hand to meet increased demand during and after the event.

Riskey cautions that a one-size-fits-all approach may not work for every church and every store, though.

“There is no set way to overcome the issue because church leadership styles and personalities are different,” he said. “Our church-store educational classes at ICRS [International Christian Retail Show] provide guidance and interaction among church-store managers to help individuals understand what has worked for others to help resolve the issue.”

GeniHulseyMany of the myriad options available to church stores have found success for church, store and author alike, reports Geni Hulsey, a church bookstore veteran who conducts those workshops at CBA’s summer show.

In one potential setup, following the model illustrated by Prestonwood, “the books are sold through the bookstore and run through the POS system of the store—even if a special location is created to expedite sales,” she said. “This is very important to the author/music group if the store is tied into any system that tallies the sales of the books/music.”

Some churches handle the situation on a case-by-case basis, making the author aware that there is a store in the church and providing a choice.

“It has been my experience that most published authors just don’t want to be bothered with it and are thrilled to find out someone will handle the details for them,” Hulsey said.

Others take a more traditional route, where the store simply invites the author in for a book signing and meet-and-greet, with the store handling all the sales.

Sometimes the authors themselves end up taking the higher road, standing as a testament to the reason they are speaking in the first place.

“There are some very high-profile authors who have come to our church, and have not insisted on selling their own product,” Thomsen said. “These authors’ primary focus in coming to the church is to minister. They want the bookstore to do well and know that when the bookstore benefits they benefit from increased exposure as well as in royalties, though that is not their primary motive.”

But when communication breaks down, the mission itself begins to erode.

“Many times there is no policy and guest speakers are invited, bringing their own books,” Hulsey said. “The store manager is not involved in any way.”

“The sad part about it being handled this way is that the store manager and workers feel less than a part of the ministry of the church,” she said. “It diminishes the ministry of the store.”