Old Books, New Tricks
the eye interviews christina foxley of the strand bookstore
PrintGood news, book lovers. The Strand Bookstore has stood sturdy for over 80 years now under the same family name and will
apparently continue to do so for many more to come. The Eye sits down to talk with Christina Foxley, the director of store events & marketing, as she explains how the New York City staple has managed both to avoid bankruptcy and to turn the recent surge in online booksellers to their advantage.
The Strand Bookstore has been around since 1927, and has always been a family-owned business. What are some of the biggest overall changes that your family has witnessed over the years?
We started out as a used book shop on Fourth Avenue in 1927. At the time, there were 48 bookstores on Fourth Avenue between Union Square and Astor Place. “Book Row” was the place to shop for used books between the 1890s and 1960s. It was about 10 to 15 years ago that we started to sell more than just used books so that we could provide all the books our customers wanted.
More specifically, has there been a trend with the products you’ve sold over that time?
Photography books are our best selling category. With the expansion of our art department, we now have one of the world’s largest art book departments, and all the books are discounted.
That’s interesting—not what I’d expect. Practically, where do you get most of your books from? Individual sellers? Large purveyors? Or do you purchase from big publishing houses?
We buy new books from publishers, used books from individuals, new books from book reviewers and remainder houses (publishers’ overstock). We offer the books at about 20 percent off the retail price. The discount varies, depending on how we purchased the book.
The used-book world is clearly changing, with the prominence of Web sites such as Amazon and the Barnes & Noble online used-book stores. That must affect your business in some way, when people can order whatever book they want from their home, right?
They affect our business quite well, as we partner with both Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. Many of the used books you find on Amazon and Barnes & Noble are Strand books that we ship from the Strand.
What is the largest demographic group currently within your clientele? How have these demographics changed over the years?
Hard to say, as we have never done any official marketing research on our clientele. We attract many students, thanks to our location, and international tourists. I would say the international tourist demographic has increased significantly over the years, probably thanks to word getting out that we have the best prices (and largest selection) of art books, in particular.
Strand Bookstore is a distinctly New York institution. How have the changing demographics of New York (gentrification, rising real estate prices) changed the nature of the store and its clientele?
We still offer a large selection of books at great prices, as we have for over 80 years. And, we still have the world’s greatest customers! Because of strandbooks.com, our inventory is now catalogued and very easy to find in the store.
Do you think that people read less now? Or are people just reading texts in other forms, such as “tweets” or blog entries? Do these other forms count as “reading”?
We have not seen any decrease in reading. Our store is always full of people wanting to dive into a good book. Tweeting and blog entries are great for what they do—marketing tools, socializing, etc.—but nothing beats the experience of reading a book.
There is a Web site for The Strand Bookstore with an online store, as well as a Twitter and Facebook account. How has the general transition of The Strand Bookstore onto the World Wide Web affected the store? Is the Web site popular? Have you ever thought of going even more high-tech, perhaps uploading books online?
Strandbooks.com generates more than a quarter of our annual sales! Twitter and Facebook are tools we use to keep our customers updated about upcoming events, new releases, exciting rare books, and general news about the store. We are always considering the future of reading and book-selling. If that means one day offering our customers the chance to upload a book from our Web site, we’ll do it.
The Strand Bookstore is famous for its somewhat chaotic set-up, and shelves crammed full of books. Have you ever considered changing the lay-out or style of the store. Perhaps you could add a cafe, or have piped-in music like a Barnes and Noble or Borders?
Fred Bass and Nancy Bass Wyden, the Strand owners, discussed the possibility of adding a cafe to the store in the past, but decided against it as a cafe would take up the space we need to display our 2.5 million books and there are coffee shops on every block! We make changes to the store whenever we can to make it easier for our customers to shop. We recently changed our policy on mandatory bag-check so that we could remove the bag check area and add three big tables of books in the front of the store, for example. We have been piping music throughout the store for ages!
How is the downfall of publishing, and the waning interest in printed material in general, affecting The Strand Bookstore? Where do you see The Strand Bookstore in five or 10 years? Is The Strand really an everlasting institution?
Thankfully, people are still buying books, totes, calendars, DVDs, audio books, etc., from us! Strand has been around for 82 years. … We’re not planning on going anywhere any time soon.
8 October 2009
vol. 7, issue 4
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