AMERICAN BOOKSELLER NORTHSHIRE BOOKSTORE by Timothy Sunderland ( TopShelf Columnist ) Twitter @ timthewriter | tim @ rulesforgiving . com
Ask Chris Morrow , the second-generation owner of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center , Vermont , about his competition . He bypasses Barnes & Noble , even though there is one ten minutes away from the second Northshire store in Saratoga Springs , New York .
Instead , Chris cuts straight to the meat , and at the same time reminds us of the strength of independent book stores .
“ Our real competition is Amazon ,” said Chris without hesitation . “ They ’ ve done a good job of devaluing books . But we find people are willing to pay for the serendipity and the feeling of discovery they get when they come to our store .”
That experience is a result of the ethos that started with Chris ’ s parents , Ed and Barbara , when they opened the store in 1976 .
“ Listening to our customers ,” said Chris . “ Right from the very beginning , that was what my folks did . They listened to the customers about what products to bring in , and what books to carry . We ’ ve always been in touch with our customers that way .”
It is a business principal that has paid off well . Northshire is having one of their best years . According to Chris , people still want the physical book . They are still looking to discover their next read in an uplifting environment . “ We don ’ t expect it to go away ,” said Chris . Barbara Morrow reveals they did it because it was something they believed in . Both the elder Morrows , however , quickly admit that there were many things they didn ’ t
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know about running a bookstore . Soon after opening they found that their 1,000-square foot store had little room for inventory . Boxes of books soon began appearing in the next logical place , the family home .
“ We were novices ,” admitted Barbara . “ We didn ’ t know what this was going to entail .”
This overcrowding went on for twelve years , while Ed and Barbra found themselves becoming experts at space utilization . Listening to their customers made things even more challenging as they found the need to respond to a clear hunger for children ’ s books . A solution came in 1986 . The Coburn Inn , a local hotel in Manchester Center , had gone bankrupt , standing vacant for two years . Ed and Barbra recognized the importance of the building ’ s location in the downtown area
and purchased it at auction . It took another two grueling years to open the new store . During that time Ed admits that what he didn ’ t know about the bookstore business in the beginning , was dwarfed by what he didn ’ t know about acting as his own construction contractor . When the 10,000-square-foot store opened in 1988 , however , one of the lessons was clear : the entire second floor was columns given over to children ’ s books . Business was booming in the new store , but the Morrow ’ s soon confronted two new challenges . Number one was what Ed refers to as the “ malling of America .” The second threat to Northshire Bookstore was , of course , Amazon . This is when Ed and Barbara realized what they had known all along : only an independent bookstore can offer the sense of community that keeps people coming in the front door . Community had always been a driving force of Northshire , but the Morrows now knew it needed an even sharper focus
Soon the Morrows were going underground — to the basement of the former Coburn Inn , where they
opened a 3,000-square-foot coffee shop called The Spiral Press .
In 2003 the Morrows received a petition from citizens from Saratoga Springs , a community 75 minutes away in New York state . The message : We like what Northshire Books has done in Vermont . We want you to come to Saratoga Springs and do the same thing . Oh , and by the way , our market area is
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