What are some tools retailers can use to encourage kids to read books, rather than play on screens? Brock: The biggest thing retailers can do is make the children’ s department feel like it belongs to kids. Too often, we build a children’ s section for adults shopping for children. There is certainly a place for that, but kids should walk into the department and immediately see something that makes them want to explore.
Put books at their eye level. Face covers outward. Create displays around themes kids care about— adventure, animals, jokes, science, sports, mysteries, graphic novels, Bible heroes or big questions about faith. Give them places to sit down and flip through a book. Let discovery happen. brick & mortar
The key is making reading active. Screens are incredibly good at promising kids something interesting will happen next. A great children’ s department should make that same promise. Dive into this book and your imagination will come to life; you’ ll meet new best friends through characters, explore worlds beyond your hometown, and, my greatest hope, connect to the Creator who made it all!
What do you think are some of the key components or initiatives that help make a children’ s department successful? Rick & Susan: We have a broad selection of books for all age groups, both Christian and general trade titles. We sell a lot to home school families and hybrid schools with a home school element, which requires a number of classic titles. These books are evaluated for content and illustrations and have been vetted through a variety of trusted sources, including book reviews, recommendations from Christian school parents, publisher catalog descriptions and our favorite authors.
Occasionally we host reading times with local authors in our kids’ space.
We also manage 6-8 Christian school book fairs every year. Our margins are less because we mark the books at 25 % off
Photo Courtesy of Logos Bookstore of Dallas
Events are another huge opportunity. An author signing is good. An author experience is even better. When I do Dr. Fizzlebop events, for example, we can combine books with live science experiments. Retailers can also use scavenger hunts, reading challenges, staff picks, collectible bookmarks, book clubs, story times, activity sheets and“ If you like this, try this” recommendations. to compete with Scholastic, but I consider that marketing dollars. These generate a lot of sales, and the parents from those schools shop with us all year long. In fact, for the first six months of the year, our children’ s department sales were equal to our Bible sales. And if you include the sales from our book fairs, our children’ s book sales far surpassed even our Bible sales. Our Bible sales were $ 63,000, and our children’ s book sales were $ 98,000.
What are some of the lessons you’ ve learned from your children’ s department? Rick & Susan: The books I read may have longer words, but I share the same desires as the kids who come in. I want books that affirm we are loved, that truth is real, that others face the same troubles that I do, that I am important and mostly, that God loves and is near to us. CRA
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