Looking Above the Treeline and More at Oregon Forum

On Saturday, February 25, at the McMenamins Kennedy School, in Portland, Oregon, the American Booksellers Association presented a Booksellers Forum and Education Program in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA). Approximately 20 booksellers attended the event, which featured the forum and the session "Creating a 'Buy Local' Campaign."

"It was really effective," said bookseller Karin Anna of Portland's Looking Glass Bookstore about the program. "I have a fistful of information and gathering with other booksellers is always good."

ABA's COO Oren Teicher and ABA Vice President Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, facilitated the lunchtime forum where they presented updates on the association's programs and initiatives and booksellers asked questions and discussed a variety of subjects. Topics included Above the Treeline (ATL), an online software product designed to help bookstores improve finances by optimizing inventory selection, now available to ABA members through a special partnership agreement, and Batch.Co.UK, a service of the Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom and Ireland, which is designed to help booksellers reduce overhead in the supply chain by providing a single, consolidated payment solution. (The ABA Board met with Fraser Tanner, Batch's managing director, at the Winter Institute to explore the applicability of this approach in the U.S.)

Anna reported that she and other booksellers were very interested in ATL. "I might consider getting it," she said. "Having a small discussion about Above the Treeline was good for me. Sitting in isolation and considering it is very different than talking to someone who's actually using the program."

New bookseller Karen Emmerling of Beach Books in Seaside, Oregon, is also considering signing up for ATL. "I've done the demonstration, and we'll probably sign up for the service soon," she explained. "Knowing what inventory is selling elsewhere on a [real time] basis would be really helpful to me."

Another timesaver booksellers discussed was the consolidation service of Batch.Co.UK. Anna said paying invoices in one consolidated batch was highly appealing given that booksellers, particularly those who order from many small presses, "face a huge number of invoices."

Prior to the forum was the "Creating a 'Buy Local' Campaign" education session introduced by Teicher, who talked about various shop local efforts across the country. Sustainable Business Network of Portland (SBNP) board members Lee Lancaster and Paul Needham then outlined the Think Local First campaign created by SBNP, which, since its creation in November 2004, has grown to include 298 of Portland's independent businesses.

"One of the themes of the session that emerged," said Lancaster "is that creating a 'Buy Local' campaign can be the bridge [for customers] between just rooting for the local guy and shopping locally as a form of social responsibility where you vote with your dollars for a really good business that reflects your values in terms of product, treatment of employees, and the good the business does in the neighborhood." He added, "Booksellers were all over it. They were a really great and empathetic audience."

Sweet Pea Flaherty of King's Books in Tacoma, Washington, reported that the "Buy Local" session was a "good introduction to creating your own campaign" and that Lancaster and Needham distributed "everything we'd need to get started." He noted that during the session he discovered that "starting a campaign is easier than you would think. You can pirate other people's information from campaigns that have already started."

Beach Books' Emmerling found the "Buy Local" session especially helpful. "Coming from a small community I can really see making our own 'Buy Local' campaign happen," she said. "If I were in a larger city it would be harder to initiate. I'm hoping to talk to our Chamber of Commerce and downtown merchants association in the next week or so about starting a campaign."

Overall, Emmerling enjoyed meeting and brainstorming with her regional colleagues. "Just the contact with other booksellers on a real one-to-one basis was great. It was good to share ideas." --Karen Schechner