Hacker News Reader

Comment by kurttheviking | Hacker News Reader

my wife and I have a new side project: we're opening a bookshop! the last local store is closing due to retirement and we figure the community demand is still there. we're negotiating the lease, sorting out how to order a lot of bookshelves, and source the initial inventory. i'm currently figuring out how to connect our point of sale system to our accounting software. good times. :)

View on HN

I hope you succeed. This would be a dream of mine, have a cozy bookshop, with maybe a cafe, or something like that. The world deserves more bookstores, they are beautiful and each one is unique. Honestly, I wish you the best and, as someone who would love to live it through but possibly won't, I'd love if you start a weekly newsletter telling what you are doing/learning in the process!

yeah, it was the same for us. really one day we woke up, talked about it, and agreed, why not. worst case, i'll work a few more years than i had originally planned or whatever. best cast, we have delivered a valuable service to the community and can work on it for many years. my wife will be full time and it's very much her dream too. i hadn't thought of the newsletter but that's such a good idea...stay tuned, i might dm you.

I'm pretty sure that the owners of Belmont Books in Belmont, MA also opened their store out of a love of bookstores & the community surrounding it. Best of luck to you! https://www.belmontbooks.com/ (no affiliation)

This is my hometown, fun to see this here. I've never been, but it sounds great.

Even if you can’t have a full service cafe, having a commercial coffee brewer (do they make tea ones?) could add that extra oomph. I like nothing more than sitting at a table and perusing my new book while sipping on some hot coffee or tea.

What accounting is it and what POS? Cuz for $15/m I have one that connects with Quickbooks online and xero natively. Would be more than enough for a bookstore / coffee. It’s well know and used all over the world.

>sorting out how to order a lot of bookshelves

I've heard that IKEA "Billy" bookshelves are very popular, including among people who heavily customize them into creations that look nothing like the original.

Or, why not buy them from the shop that's closing? Or buy the whole business?

That does seem like it would be the easiest route, but it seems that if that were an option, the OP probably would have done it already. I wonder if it wasn't an option for some reason.

yeah it wasn't an option for a variety of reasons. for instance, landlord of the prior location will subdividing and reletting the space and that work will take time to complete. another consideration is remaining inventory tends to be the stuff that doesn't sell well anyway and even at a steep discount that inventory occupies valuable shelf space.

That's lovely. I'm still in university, but one thing I've wanted to do since I was a kid is to have a small bookshop or library later in life. Thanks for showing me it can be done!

Ah, my wife and I have always wanted to do the same. We would like to make it a bookshop for dog charity. Hope we get there some day as well. Keep up the good work!

Awesome! Are you planning to build a bookshop or something more like a library?

we have a really great local library system where i live so what we're working on is definitely more a local store. we'll have a mix of titles based on our knowledge of community preferences (my wife is also a writer and knows much more than me about the local scene), seasonal titles (e.g. featuring new and old horror titles in october), plus events like author readings and educational seminars.

That sounds great. All the best with your new venture.

My wife and I have fantasized about this too. Good luck!!

That sounds pretty cool!

What kind of margins do book stores typically have?

at full retail price, you're often looking at 40-50% for books...but then everything goes on sale at some point. sideline merch (think the stuffed animals in the kids section) can get 60%+. but after rent, expenses, etc. we're just hoping to break even in year 1. the math suggests its possible but we're about to find out empirically. in the end, most evidence also suggests there are a lot easier ways to make $30k net a year. but it's a community project as a much as a business.

more power to you finding something you love and providing so lovingly to the community, money be damned, it's all the other things that truly matter!

my wife and I when visiting a new place specifically seek out the local bookshop and buy something, her heading into the nonfiction section and me into fantasy/scifi. always a pleasure.

yes exactly, my wife and i are the same way. some of the other shops we talked to were surprised at the amount of foot traffic from people who for one reason or another just happened to be in the area. anyway, we will have a full 8x13' room for scifi/fantasy; that's my section too...we could probably use more space for that. :)

the aba does a yearly survey and last one i read, 2% profit was the average

yup...it's razor thin. the ones that we found doing well are very, very good at community engagement in events and partnerships with local schools, community colleges, etc.

do you need ecommerce software for your store? i posted about making an app for booksellers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41691388

This is wonderful!

You are wonderful!

thanks! my wife and i both really like local bookstores and often stop into them when we travel. and you know, you only live once...so why not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com