Thinking of expanding your café?

I’ve been thinking about the “future expansion” of our café for several years now…it probably started about 6 months into being in our current space that was opened Easter weekend of 2003. We made the best use of the space that we had to develop our Connection Café. However, early on we started making notes about improvements that we wanted to make in our next space. Some issues that needed help:

· Work flow- make sure you aren’t wasting steps

· Menu- we started out WAY to broad with our syrup offerings…it’s much easier to add to the mix rather than take something away

· Power & water- you’ll need more connections to both in the future than you do today

· Equipment-performing preventative maintenance, on say your ice machine, means that (hopefully) you won’t walk in one Sunday morning and there’s no ice

· Technology- if you think you only need one Point of Sale station plan for 2…when you need to add it the infrastructure is already there

Our New Normal Project launched a little over a year ago and with it came plans for our new Commons space and an expanded café and bookstore. Thanks to a mild winter, the construction is on schedule and our existing café is 3 weeks away from being shut down for renovations. It’s been quite a process and we are still months out from opening our new space. What has been happening behind the scenes?

· 18 months ago we began dreaming about what we’d ultimately like the environment and menu we want to offer to the community

· 15 months out we nailed down our menu offering- we’re going with a expanded coffee bar and soup/salad/sandwich model similar to Panera Bread

· 12 months out we started talking to food service vendors and visited the National Restaurant Show in Chicago…an amazing experience that I’d highly recommend

· 11 months out we started working through the equipment that we’d need. We asked, “What will the process look like to make a latte, X sandwich, Y soup or Z salad?” This step was key and very involved.

· 10 months out…and should have happened sooner, we meet with a restaurant designer. The good news was we had thought through the process, bad news we wasted a lot of time that the designer could have speed through.

More to come…

Profitability?

I recently recieved some questions from another bookstore about profitability and thought this might be helpful to someone else also!

Would you mind answering a few questions?

Is your on-campus store profitable? If so, please answer the following questions.

1. Your Name: Susan Chipman
   Church: Granger Community Church, Granger, IN
   Your role in the bookstore: Director of Retail Services
2. How long has your bookstore been open? Officially…with a license and all…8 years. Started out very small on a counter 10 years before that.
3. Is your staff paid or volunteers? I’m the only paid staff (also oversee a separate café) 50 volunteers that serve about 6 hrs a month.
4. How, if at all, do you advertise? Twitter & Facebook
5. What are the days/hours of operation? Just when there are people on campus. Saturday 3-8:30. Sunday 8:30-1:00, Monday 5:30-7:00, Wed. 5:30-8:00…or by chance or appointment.
6. Do you purchase your stock at a discount? If so, where and how did you qualify? Yes, we use all major publishers (Zondervan, Thomas Nelson) and Distributors (STL & Spring Arbor). We set up most of our accounts at CBA and THE Gathering events. Having a CBA membership and Retail Merchant Certificate from the state, in the early days, gave us credibility with the vendors
7. Do you offer weekly discounts or coupons toward products in your store? Occasionally, but typically only through our “Guest Rewards” program.
8. Do volunteers/ministry partners/staff receive discounts? If so, what? We offer a 20% discount to church staff all of the time, and 2x a year we offer our Retail Volunteers the same.
9. Can customers order items from your bookstore online? no
10. How do you compete with the online booksellers like Amazon or your local Christian bookstores? We don’t look at them as competition, rather “Partners”.
11. What do you believe is the key to its profitability? Turn! Keep turning the inventory, we strive for 6x a year. Also, increased gift/art products have been a great addition to our product mix and margin.
12. Can you offer any lessons learned? Discount books. 3 years ago I picked up the vendor SAS, which is now Wholesale Christian Books, and we keep a $5 or less sale table in the hall right outside of the bookstore. Great margin and it keeps our guest coming back to see what is going to show up!
13. (optional): What % of your overall church budget is designated toward the bookstore? What is your ROI? 0% The bookstore is completely self supporting and nothing comes from the General Fund to support it. Actually, we were able to give back a significant amount of money to launch our second campus 2 years ago. The last 2 years have been a challenge economically, but we’re defiantly on the upswing now!

Should we carry items for other ministries within the church?

Here's a question that I recently received:

“Quick question on clothing…do you guys sell clothing in your Bookstore? If so, do you sell clothing for the different departments in your church (i.e. sweatshirt for the youth group)? We are trying to determine how best to handle the clothing we sell for other departments. Do they get all the profits since they are purchasing the clothing or do we buy it from them at cost, since the Bookstore manages and sells the clothing.”

This is a great question with no easy answer! It really could be a good way to drive traffic to the store which is always a good thing. If you do have the space and it is something that you want to do…here are a few things to talk through:

· Figure out what the real purpose is for the specific ministry that is wanting their product carried…and that can help you figure out how to manage the product.

o Are they wanting to raise funds?

o Do they want to promote something or just get rid of what they have?

o Are they working on “branding” their ministry?

Then this is HOW I’d go about it:

· The best win/win scenario would be to have the bookstore sell it on a consignment basis.

· Have the ministry area design, develop and pay for the product at cost.

· Set a retail price, knowing that the bookstore will retain X% of all sales (I’d suggest 20%).

· After X amount of time, any product that hasn’t sold will be returned to the ministry. This minimizes the risk that too much is ordered and the bookstore will end up sitting on them for eternity.

Making the switch from free coffee…

This is a often asked question and takes some strategic planning. We’ve never had to make the switch so I don’t envy you. But in talking to other churches that have, here are some suggestions.

· Vision is critical. It must be shared with the congregation in a way that communicates, “We’re going to offer far superior service than we have to date.” I think it’s ok to let people know that the “free” coffee really does have a cost associated with it… and wouldn’t it be a better use of those resources to serve (insert ministry effort here).

· Stop what you are doing. By closing down the “free” coffee for a few weeks while you prepare to re-launch the new and improved coffee bar, you’ll help people to get excited about the change. Now here’s the deal. You really have to offer something better than they’ve had before. Upgrade your brew, switch from Styrofoam to paper cups, add some syrups and work towards matching their local coffee shop experience.

· Here are a few more articles on starting up your café.

Have you had success in making the switch? I’d love to hear about it!

Things I'm looking forward to in 2010...

It's been some time since I've posted. So, I thought I'd start out by sharing some of the retail-related things I'm excited about for the year!

• A refreshed outlook on the future! 2009 by any standards was a challenging year and I'm glad it is behind us!
• The Gathering 2010 will be in Louisville, KY at Southeast Christian Church at the end of April. Sure to be a highlight of the year...and in driving distance!
• Bibles, Bibles, Bibles! Thanks to an encouragement from Mark Beeson to really get into the Bible and Zondervan's online Bible training, our volunteers are better equipped to serve our guests! In the first month of 2010 we've sold as many Bibles as we did in 1/2 of last year!
• Frozen Custard! We've partnered with Ritter's to sell their frozen custard in the cafe. It seems crazy to test it in the coldest months of the year...but it has been well received! Looking forward to what the warmer weather will bring.

Keeping it fresh

Think about visual merchandising from your guests’ perspective. Being a church store, your guest may visit you on a weekly basis. What is it that they see? Are the window displays the same for weeks on end? What are you promoting at the cash register? What are your featured displays highlighting? Was it the same thing 2 weeks ago…how about last month?

The best thing you can do to create interest in your store is to keep displays moving. There is something stimulating about “fresh” product and no matter how long you’ve had that item, featuring it in a new display may just help it find a new home

The best training resource that I know of…

The Church Bookstore magazine & the Network of Church Bookstores has been around for more than 5 years now and is the best resource around for improving your skills! Here’s a quote from Geni Hulsey, President of the Network and long time church bookstore retailer, that really sums things up.

“The Church Bookstore magazine has always been a training piece. Every article is written by a bookstore manager, employee or volunteer who is working in or has experience in a church bookstore, or by a vendor who knows well some aspect of the industry and has worked hand in hand with church bookstores.”

See the full article and get a taste of the weekly e-news here.