{"id":836,"date":"2010-05-03T09:15:58","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T13:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pw.mediapolis.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=836"},"modified":"2010-05-03T09:15:58","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T13:15:58","slug":"salefail-losing-sales-through-every-fault-of-your-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=836","title":{"rendered":"#SaleFail: Losing Sales Through Every Fault of Your Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lovely Canadian tourist couple came into the store the other day, and after browsing for a while, they bought a couple of books, among them a book group reading log we’ve had on the shelf for a good long while. I was delighted to see it leaving the store in the hands of an appreciative buyer — especially one who lives out of the country, which diminishes the possibility of returns by about 100%. (Doesn’t it seem as though the books you’re most happy to see leaving the store are always the ones that get returned?)
\nWe chatted a little about her book group; she was getting the log as a gift for one of her reading companions. Suddenly, I remembered a brand-new reading-group log we’d just gotten in — one with a less handsome cover but a lot more oomph inside, most notably checklists of up-to-date literary prize winners. I suppose I was thinking the customer might want a reading log for herself, too; at least, that’s how I justify the following downward spiral of salesmanship:
\n“Oh!” I said. “If you like reading logs, you need to see the one we just got in. It’s jam-packed with features…” At this point, I started seeing the yellow flags alerting my inner Paco Underhill to the bad path I was heading down. I was committing a couple of errors here: 1) undermining a customer’s purchase; 2) pointing them toward a different, less expensive alternative.
\nUnable to stop myself, I leapt out from behind the counter and dashed to the Book Group Picks shelf where she’d found the other log. I could have pretended we were out of the new book, sure, and I certainly didn’t need to point out all of the cool features it had. But I am a book enthusiast first and a businesswoman second, and truthfully, in good conscience I couldn’t just let her leave the store without seeing all of the choices.
\nAs surely as bread falls jelly-side down, she hesitantly asked if she could exchange the first book for the second. “Of course!” I said brightly, hiding my disappointment. To add insult to injury, the new book was $3 cheaper. Why didn’t I let her leave with a book I wanted to get rid of, that she was perfectly happy with? Now I had to run a credit through the machine, and since her card is from a Canadian bank, I racked up a few extra fees on both sides of that transaction. #SaleFail!
\nI comforted myself by not offering to giftwrap the book, and she didn’t ask, so at least I wasn’t out the price of the paper.
\nThe bookseller in me is, of course, happy that she left my store with the best possible book, but I was kicking myself for the rest of the day for my idiocy. The spine of the older, less oomph-y, nonreturnable reading log sits spitefully on the shelf, a mute reminder of my failure.
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>In case you’re curious about the new reading log, there are actually two versions, adult and teen. Both are really terrific (although I wish their covers looked less “school assignment”-y) and are nicely and cleanly designed inside. Read, Remember, Recommend: A Reading Journal for Book Lovers<\/em> and Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens: A Reading Journal for Book Lovers<\/em>, both by Rachelle Rogers Knight (Sourcebooks, $15.99, EAN 978-1402237188 and EAN 978-1402237195 respectively).
\nBooksellers, have any remarkable sales fails to share? Tell us. It’s cathartic. Kind of.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lovely Canadian tourist couple came into the store the other day, and after browsing for a while, they bought a couple of books, among them a book group reading log we’ve had on the shelf for a good long while. I was delighted to see it leaving the store in the hands of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}