Another retail leader has urged Christian stores to make sure that more staff are book lovers if they are to prosper.

"We must return to our roots," says social-media marketing consultant Gunnar Simonsen. Emphasizing "the need to staff bookers," he says that Christian stores must "major in the majors because in our industry, our majors are our niche."

His comments are made in an article for a forthcoming issue of CBA's Retailers + Resources magazine, which Simonsen—formerly general manager of the Christian Supply Centers in the Pacific Northwest—previewed on his blog.

Simonsen's call follows a warning by David Almack, U.S. director of CLC International, which publishes books and runs CLC Bookcenters in the Philadelphia area and New Jersey, that "we must all become avid readers or we will die."

In an Industry Forum guest column in the December issue of Christian Retailing, Almack said that he was concerned so many retailers said they did not read much. "Making time every day and certainly every week to immerse ourselves in the books and authors that God has given us the privilege to represent has to be one of our biggest business priorities," he wrote.

In Simonsen article, he writes of one leading Christian publishing CEO who told him that he believed revival in local bookstores was possible, but the problem was that many stores were "generally not staffed by bookers. As a result, they end up competing against Amazon on price and selection—two things they can never win on."

Simonsen recalls how after digital music saw CD sales drop in-store, accounting for around 12% of sales, "we were still spending 50%-60% of payroll dollars to these stores staffing music lovers, not readers. Great people, but when we are selling a myriad of core products as we historically have, we must staff accordingly to more accurately reflect category shares within our stores."

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