Few lines in a store have the potential to impact the lives of thousands of children in the community for the kingdom of Christ like Sunday school. It is the primary program in the church that builds a solid spiritual foundation week after week, all year long.
Many Christian stores carry Sunday school curriculum or related resource product—with varying degrees of success. Economic pressures have forced staff and inventory reductions, which consequently reduce the impact of this important category. In spite of these factors, Sunday school is  too critical a category for a store to neglect.
Here are three tips to grow Sunday school business:

Promote your service
When you fill orders, insert the teacher guides with a store flyer promoting your related resource books and thank the teachers for their dedication and service. List your location and store hours—this is virtually free advertising.

Drive related resources
Keep the Top 10 or Top 20 resource-related books well merchandised. Many teachers look for “lesson enhancement” materials like word-search puzzles or fun crafts. These are great add-on sales.

Encourage the users
Customers must see that you appreciate the role teachers have in the lives of children. Get involved—consider promoting the Sunday School Teacher of the Year Award, sponsored by Gospel Light, which takes place each October.
Budgets at most churches have been cut, and many committed teachers are buying the material they need for their students out of their own pockets. They come into a store to see what choices there are for the specific age they teach. Make sure you have sample packs available for teachers to review during their decision-making process.
Help customers reorder their material each quarter. A reorder or standing-order service will build loyalty with customers because they sincerely appreciate you taking the time to make their lives easier. For each customer, maintain a reorder form in Excel—I can send you a sample—to provide the past two quarters’ ordered quantities. This alone will reap great rewards.
Selling Sunday school curriculum takes time, effort and a good plan. But invest in all three ingredients and you will succeed.

President and general manager of Valley Book & Bible Stores for 34 years, Dave Wilke is now marketing manager for Sunday school at Gospel Light. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

It’s OK to admit it. Each of us has been in a checkout line in the grocery store, glanced at the array of mints, candies and nail clippers next to us and bought something we had no intention of purchasing when we came into the store.
Those impulse sales are important enough to grocery stores that they allocate space for them right in high-traffic areas, easily within reach of customers, and positioned to allow a touch-and-take impulse purchase. Impulse sales should be that important to your store as well.
There are two kinds of impulse purchases. First is the “out-of-the-blue” purchase. Your customer had no intention of buying anything at all in that category. But—when she saw it, she liked it.
The second kind of impulse sale is the “something-but-I-don’t-know-what” purchase. The customer comes into the store for a primary purchase such as a book, CD or significant gift purchase. But, in the back of her mind, she is also thinking that if just the right “little something” appealed to her, she would pick it up for the women in her Sunday school class or for a neighbor or co-worker.
Are little purchases like this important to your store? Suppose your average purchase transaction is $20, a sale consisting generally of one to two items. If your customer picks up impulse items totaling just $3, that transaction has just increased by 15%. In a time when every sales dollar is precious, that can be a significant boost to a store’s bottom line.

Impulse areas
Return now to your experience in the grocery checkout line. What made you buy mints or candy or nail clippers when you had not intended to? Smart retailers know that all of these generate impulse sales:

 High-traffic areas
 Close-at-hand displays
 Touch-and-feel product merchandising
 Grouped, low-cost items
 Colorful, clean displays with clearly marked prices
Finally—and most importantly—well-trained store employees generate impulse sales: “Did you see that we have bookmarks to go with that book purchase?” “Did you see the little message cards we have that you can tuck inside that greeting card?”
Take a critical look at the spaces that lead customers to your checkout counter.
Are you merchandising impulse products there effectively? Would some rearrangement of product or displays help to catch the customer’s attention? Is the counter space at your register being used to generate sales?
If your counter is already well used, can you do something else—like add a table next to where customers stand—to generate more sales?
The little things are important to your customers—and they are important to your store’s sales, too.

Bobbi Baugh is president of Universal Designs, manufacturers of Pass-It-On Message cards, one of the top-selling impulse products in the Christian market.

Hope is a hot topic these days. From economics to political integrity, from international relations to family life, people need encouragement. Gift books continue to serve well in this area, but the graduation season offers a particularly effective time in which to affect the hearts, dreams and futures of the new generations coming up.
Bear in mind that an estimated 3.5 high school students and 3.7 million college students—associate, bachelor and post grad combined—will graduate before the end of this month. That is a lot of opportunity to provide meaningful gifts for shoppers looking to affirm and celebrate the graduates in their lives.
Here’s my list of the ABCs not to miss:

A. Consistent, visible placement: One of the difficulties of this season is that it is not clearly focused on a day. Rather, it’s a season that starts right after Easter and can extend into June. Grouping the titles in a heavy traffic area is key, but the trick is keeping them available throughout the two-month window so that, even through other promotions, regular customers know where to look when their time to buy comes.

B. Clear, invitational messaging: Inspiring the next generation—especially when they are close to us—is a worthy goal, so create messaging to draw customers into the buying experience by igniting the desire to be important in the future of those we care about. Communicating that our graduates are our future and encouraging your customers that the inspiration found in the graduation books can impact that will be key.

C. Creative package pricing: Although prices are always a concern in this economy, try creatively packaging books since often people are buying for multiple graduates. And everyone has people on their list that maybe they wouldn’t normally buy for, but could if invited into the purchase with a great deal on quantities or some other creative up-sell.

D. Classical thinking: Gift books for the season don’t have to have “graduation” in the title. Classics like Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds′ Feet on High Places or J. Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest readily come to mind as popular choices, while our ″God’s Promises″ line—including our God’s Promises for Graduates 2010—has sold more than 6 million copies.

Eric Mullett is marketing director for gift books and backlist at Thomas Nelson.

Few lines in a store have the potential to impact the lives of thousands of children in the community for the kingdom of Christ like Sunday school. It is the primary program in the church that builds a solid spiritual foundation week after week, all year long.

Many Christian stores carry Sunday school curriculum or related resource product—with varying degrees of success. Economic pressures have forced staff and inventory reductions, which consequently reduce the impact of this important category. In spite of these factors, Sunday school is  too critical a category for a store to neglect.

Here are three tips to grow Sunday school business:

It's OK to admit it. Each of us has been in a checkout line in the grocery store, glanced at the array of mints, candies and nail clippers next to us and bought something we had no intention of purchasing when we came into the store.

Those impulse sales are important enough to grocery stores that they allocate space for them right in high-traffic areas, easily within reach of customers, and positioned to allow a touch-and-take impulse purchase. Impulse sales should be that important to your store as well.

There are two kinds of impulse purchases. First is the "out-of-the-blue" purchase. Your customer had no intention of buying anything at all in that category. But—when she saw it, she liked it.

The second kind of impulse sale is the "something-but-I-don't-know-what" purchase. The customer comes into the store for a primary purchase such as a book, CD or significant gift purchase. But, in the back of her mind, she is also thinking that if just the right "little something" appealed to her, she would pick it up for the women in her Sunday school class or for a neighbor or co-worker.

Gourmet treats are a good way for stores to increase their impulse buys, give a lift to slow-moving products and pep up seasonal sales.

Consumers are recognizing that quality and stylish edibles—like the chocolates we create, wrapped and boxed with scriptural messages—can give a special touch to a wide range of settings, from party and wedding favors to study groups, church welcome packs, classes, seminars and retreats.

Here are some ideas on how your store can add gourmet treats and snacks to your product line and increase your profit margin: