People tend to see things from their own point of view. Therefore, whenever I am evaluating something that I did not approve of, I try to turn things around and imagine that I am the other person:
With this in mind, I would say that it is quite exciting to be responsible for running my church ‘library’. This is a library with a difference, because all the books are brand new, and they are changed every 3 weeks. How enjoyable it is to grab a large table after the church service and begin piling books onto it, displaying them in an interesting way for all the congregation to see!
How proud I will feel when people congratulate me on my fantastic selection – books I chose all by myself. It took me 35 minutes to fill four baskets. And how nice it is for people to thank me for taking the time to choose them, pack them up and look after them. It makes the thought of taking them back to the shop, more appeasing. You see, each time the service ends, people come up to the table and finger the books. They bend them, and sometimes the corners of the front covers fold over. After all the 50 books have been handled, only two or three are ever sold, but hey, now there are 47 other titles that people now know about.
But I am nervous because I know I’ll have to take them back to the shop soon. That Casper will be ringing me and asking why I’ve held onto them for almost five weeks. That girl, Sharon, will be disappointed when she sees me walking in with my large boxes. When I bundle all the unsold books onto the counter, and tell her I have only sold 3, she’ll try to look unaffected by my comment, but I’ll know what she’s really thinking.
But it’s not my fault is it? I’m the one who has to lug all the books back to the shop again. I tried to sell more; I really did.
So here goes. Ah, it’s not too busy today so I won’t be holding up many other customers.
That adding machine they use is a bit old fashioned. I suppose they can’t afford to invest in a state-of-the-art one. I hope her figure tallies with mine or she’ll have to start all over again. Where’s my discount card? Ah, there it is. 15% off. I should think so too! Afterall, it’s me who is doing the advertising for them. They should pay me commission on top of that!
Oh, what’s her colleague doing? Why is she inspecting the books I’ve just returned? There’s nothing wrong with them is there? Why has she separated 9 copies and placed a heavy book on top of them? Blooming cheek! They are not that bent, surely? Okay, so one or two have protruding front pages that don’t close properly now and they curl upwards as if there is a mouse hiding behind the front cover. Why is Sophie cleaning that pile over there, with a cloth? Okay, so some have got a bit bashed to the point that they now look second-hand, but what’s the big deal? Three books sold out of 50 isn’t bad is it? I am like their unpaid book promoter and I’m sure more people will be making purchases the next time. Ah, that reminds me, I need to choose another 40 to take away.
They won’t like it. Especially as some of the books I’m planning to take will strip their shelves of best-selling titles. But that’s their problem. They should order more stock in then, shouldn’t they? Ah, Trudy has appeared. I can’t believe she had the nerve to tell me last time, to not take the last copy of the titles on their promotion table. Don’t they want sales?
What’s that Louise doing? Taking all those books that I brought, back upstairs. She better not put them all back onto the shelf because I might want to borrow some of them again.
Right, let’s see what I can take this time…”
God is the only one who sees both sides of a story. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he is talking about when he says we should bear with one another, forgive each other and think highly of one another.
The customers who regularly took books away using our “Sale or Return” scheme were not bad people. They were not deliberately insensitive to our needs and when they took the last copy of books from the promotion table before the promotion actually began the following day, they were not being selfish. In this situation there will always be two points of view: one from those standing on the outside of the counter and a totally different one from those behind it.
My opinion was that by the way in which it was organised, it was not profitable for the shop. Within the month, customers from about nine different churches would take books away for long periods of time without us having any indication of what was going to be sold.
We used a scanner to record what had been removed, but this only told us what might have sold. When Casper reviewed his re-order list the following day, he had no idea if 4 copies of a certain title needed to be replaced or not. Subsequently, we would re-order certain titles only to have five churches bring copies of the same book back, leaving us over-stocked. Yes, because of “Sale or Returns”, overstocks were a common problem.
We loved being busy, so it was not the extra work that bothered us so much. It was the fact that it seemed that by permitting churches to remove so much produce from our shelves for such long periods of time, that we lost money because of the damages, unjustified discounts, overstocks, and other little niggles that caused confusion.
Books were often returned long after a promotion had ended, so not only did they have to all be re-priced, but the sales stickers had to be removed, which took ages because they often stuck on hard or ripped the surface of the cover if peeled off too quickly.
Archie’s parents were the only customers who regularly sold several items using this scheme and we were extremely grateful for the professional way they handled the system. They truly deserved the discount. Unfortunately, regarding the rest, it felt like a lot of work for hardly any positive results. It was, “Mishandle and Return”. The scheme was devised in the name of advertising. It was also supposed to be of a benefit for those who were unable to get to a bookshop during the week and I sympathised with those; however, we had a catalogue, and we had a website, both of which, would have benefitted them just as well.
Occasionally, customers would ask us if they could take away a selection of CDs too, and that really got me mad. I would flatly refuse, but they sometimes managed to persuade Casper to part with a few titles. Being in charge of the music, this threw my head into a spin, especially as CD cases are so fragile. But it also took away my control over our stock levels and as we Yorkshire folk would say, ‘It proper did me head in.’
Please stay with me, I’m still whinging.
Our other money-losing operation were the special orders. On a Thursday morning, Trudy would lovingly spend precious moments of her time researching retailers and wholesalers to find titles that were not on our database.
Most customers were appreciative of this extra effort that was made to obtain an obscure title or one that was only being sold in America. Sometimes the Barbican Bookshop in York sold us coveted out of print titles and they were a great help.
However, quite a few special orders were never collected and therefore, never paid for.
The reason why we lost money on these items is because at the time of order, no deposit was necessary. The customer would give us their word that they were serious about buying the product and as far as our superiors were concerned, that was enough. However, there was a common habit that the one who placed the order would either declare that the product wasn’t exactly like what they thought it would be or make the more popular decision of deciding not to come in and collect it. They would refuse to answer Trudy’s phone calls and ignore the postcards she sent to them reminding them that their order was ready.
In my opinion, this happened because there was no incentive to take ownership of their actions. People failed to commit because they were given no obligation to follow through with their duty of purchase. ‘Someone else can buy it.’ was an easier notion to take rather than fulfilling one’s promise to purchase what was asked for.
We are a nation of consumers. People would see an advert on the God Channel for a unique product and get excited. We have all fallen for the ‘Get your copy today!’ commercials and when we are told that this thing will change our lives, make us richer, happier, more blessed and turn us into better people, we take the bait and don’t stop to consider that it is either not worth the price, or our homes have no more space.
Special orders were therefore, often left uncollected in our store cupboard and eventually dumped into the bargain bucket to be sold off at half price, later on in the year.
I used to say that if I had my own way, my rule would be that anyone asking for something not on our database, must pay a non-refundable deposit of 50% of the purchase price and also be told that the product is non-returnable.
My stance behind this plan was that even if we didn’t make a profit from uncollected items, if we managed to sell them off at half price, we would have at least made our money back. But alas, we regularly made a significant loss owing to people’s reluctance to pay for what they had ordered.
I remember the title of a book that a guy desperately wanted to get hold of.
It was called, “Revelations – There’s Light After the Lime.” The author was a man named Mason Bertha and his picture was on the front cover. While Trudy was on holiday, I was doing her special orders and this customer kept on ringing me to find out if his book had arrived. I assured him that I would contact him as soon as we had it in our possession. He squealed with delight. That was the last noise I ever heard coming out of his mouth. He did not pass into the next world – he passed into oblivion and refused to answer my calls.
One day, I spotted him in the shop and made a beeline in his direction. Seeing me in his peripheral vison, he quickly grabbed the headphones from the listening post and pressed the play button. The fact that he had switched on a children CD by Ishmael did not faze him – there was no way he was going to buy that book.
To my dismay, Mason Bertha was taken out of the collection cupboard and placed in the “Autobiographies” section of our shelves upstairs. He stayed there for many months. At the hefty price of £18.99, this book was not cheap and not likely to be ever sold in a hurry. Each time I went towards that section, there he was – a black fellow wearing a tank top, staring intently into the camera with his hands clasped in front of him.
Customers would send me upstairs for various books and there he would be, sat in front of his swirly patterned wallpaper, looking more and more angry each time our eyes met. Jackie Pullinger would have her big break, when “Chasing the Dragon” was required downstairs. Eddie Stobart’s story would be of interest to someone else and I would swipe him off the shelves. Corrie Ten Boom followed from her “Hiding Place”, as, yet another customer was desperate to read her gripping story. But, there Brother Mason remained, ironically, out of the limelight and getting dustier by the day.
The book did look fairly interesting. But not interesting enough for any of our customers to want to buy it and certainly not interesting enough for the person who ordered it to take if off our hands.
