The gift department is on a roll at Bonnie Hole's Canadian Christian bookstore. Literally. With all the fixtures on casters at her Family Book Nook in Medicine Hat, Alberta, she is able to keep things looking fresh by moving displays around and has found creative rotation to be as important as careful selection.

"We can have something here for four years and put it in another display and then someone will come in and see it for the first time and want it," said Hole, who has gradually increased the emphasis on gifts at the store through her 20-plus years in business.

Recognizing that customers sometimes simply don't see something that may be right in front of them if they are not looking for it, Hole has taken advantage of her generous floor space to challenge conventional wisdom which says that out-of-season items should be put away because they make a store look dated.

Hole draws on her previous life in church ministry for creative display ideas, finding inspiration from events she would help stage as director of education for a local congregation. Old furniture and fabrics help add flourish. To promote Karen Kingsbury's recent release, Leaving, she displayed copies of the book on an old suitcase to play off its theme of departures.

Read the complete Star Store profile in the June issue of Inspirational Gift Mart magazine.

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