Smart Business Magazine, Aug 2012

10 Smart Business Florida August 2012 Solicit ideas The change making started in earnest at Half Price Books semiannual management meeting last fall Wright asked everyone attending upper management regional managers district managers to come to the meeting armed with ideas to counteract the companys sales slowdown At our meeting in October we broke up into groups and put challenges before the groups Wright says We had asked everyone to come prepared with ideas for ways to improve their stores their buying everything We spent three days hashing it over and we came away with things that we are going to try and with different groups that are going to try to fix different areas Were using the expertise of the people that are actually doing the job to pay attention and see whats broken or what can be improved on Among Half Price Books new initiatives is a program to bar code all of the books on its stores shelves and computerize its inventory chainwide This program which is being rolled out over several years has been implemented in about 30 HPB stores so far and Wright says the company plans to install it in about 35 more stores by the end of this year The bar coding and computerization of inventory provides a dual benefit It enables HPB to search for and find items for customers chainwide and it allows the company to sell its merchandise online both on its own website and on other booksellers sites Once were bar coded then we can shelfscan and were listing the books on our own website HPB Marketplace as well as sites like Amazon Half com and Alibris Wright says This enables us to sell anywhere we dont have a brick and mortar store So were selling simultaneously off the shelf and online And with 115 stores we have probably the best variety and buying power of anybody as far as what were able to get and sell So this is a pretty big deal In addition HPB is using the new online sales conduit to sell its own excess inventory Previously the company had sold its excess books in bulk to smaller online only resellers for a pittance Now by selling the books itself HPB is making a better profit on them Weve always bought way more books than we could sell Wright says Some of the excess books we donate but with most of our excess books our practice has been to sell them in bulk to other book dealers But weve come to realize that thats ridiculous because were cleaning the product packaging it getting it all neat and tidy and then selling it to them basically for nothing And then they turn around and list it online and compete against us So weve started selling these books online ourselves she says My opinion is that if these other companies can sell them online then we ought to be able to sell them online And in doing this were drying up those sites main source for good cheap inventory I think thats going to work in our favor Half Price Books is also starting to become more active in buying and selling educational textbooks Were focusing a lot more on the textbook market Wright says Before we didnt really think we could complete with college bookstore operator Nebraska Book Co We brought in a gentleman who has a background in buying and selling textbooks and hes working with our stores on databases to help us determine what textbooks are being used at the different universities Were even going to experiment with a sort of reverse bookmobile a buymobile that will go to university towns and buy books from students Build a solid foundation Wright attributes Half Price Books long track record of stable growth to the companys founding principles which havent Each person that works here gets to think and be exposed to new information all day every day Theyre basically entrepreneurs Sharon Anderson Wright president and CEO Half Price Books Records Magazines Inc Feature Half Price Books Records Magazines Inc