Goerings Book Store will be closing its doors next month. We are ancients by book-store standards; we would have celebrated our thirty-ninth birthday in the fall of 2010. Originally located at University and Thirteenth, the store was in its early years a franchise, Goerings Little Professor Book Center, owned and operated by Harvey and Viola Goering. The present owners changed the name to Goerings Book Store.
The store prospered. By every measure we were well-run and received national recognition of that fact. Our sales per square foot and per payroll dollar far exceeded the national average. We provided an array of customer services, among them special ordering and free gift wrapping. And we took advantage of out-of-store selling opportunities. Our staff enjoyed hosting author events, our Storybook Hour, and other ‘happenings.’ Within a year of our opening, we began stocking books for classes offered in the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Fine Arts, and Education, UF.
The six current staff members at Goerings, plus five former employees, represent over 300 years of bookselling experience. Add to that expertise the many fine student employees that we have had. Our reputation throughout North Florida and with visitors to the University has been based on an impressive selection of university presses and ‘mid-list’ books. Science, paperback fiction, art, architecture, history, religion, criticism, and current affairs have been our stronger sections. Goerings Book Store always had and still has a good children’s section. We’re ‘local;’ we stocked a large selection of books on Florida and have made it our policy to welcome titles by local authors.
Alas, the Gainesville book-buying community attracted the attention of the ‘superstores,’ and the town became overwhelmed with new spaces and inventories. Books-a-Million opened first. Barnes & Noble and Media Play (now closed) followed. Borders and a second Books-a-Million came along in the fall of 1999. As this happened in community after community, independent book stores and the smaller chains began to close. We managed to compete and survive.
As the major national chains consolidated their market share, they began to dictate terms to publishers, obtaining larger discounts from publishers not justified by reduced costs. That practice had been banned by federal legislation passed in the 1930s, and the American Booksellers Association sued the six biggest publishers. We eventually negotiated a favorable out-of-court settlement. When Penguin USA was caught giving unwarranted additional discounts to get the conglomerates to pay their bills, the ABA went back to the court and got a pile of money.
Ten years ago the Methodist Church next door, our landlord at University & Thirteenth, decided to redevelop the church property. Forced to relocate, we split the store, moving the textbook operation to our present location on NW 1st Avenue and the trade store to the Westgate shopping center. Withthese two moves, we more than doubled our total square footage. While we relished the additional space and the rents were reasonable, both stores were larger than we needed.
Westgate was a fabulous place. But unfortunately within a few months of the move, the second Books-a-Million and the new Borders opened less than two miles away. That created an additional 40,000+ square feet and huge additional book inventory in our market. Industry analysts were cautious about this last wave of superstore expansion; most markets were already over-supplied, including Gainesville. Furthermore our existence at Westgatewas complicated by the Florida Department of Transportation’s limiting our customers’ access from both West University Avenue and 34th Street. We believed, however, that we retained important advantages over our chain competition. That changed as non-market interventions by publishers and state, and local governments altered the terms of competition.
Neither Books-a-Million nor Borders have been doing well in recent years, as the plunge in their stock prices suggests. In the spring of 2008, Borders announced that it would have to enter bankruptcy because it couldn’t pay its bills even under the more lenient terms it enjoyed from publishers. With two of the three national chains in financial trouble, it looked as though we might be able to recover market share. But Borders was “too big to fail,” and publisher after publisher intervened. They agreed not to press for payments within the standard sixty-day limit, in return for Borders agreeing to a “repayment plan.” In other words, the chain was given a bailout by the major publishing conglomerates.
The same opportunities were not extended to independents. Indeed, most large and middle-sized publishers began slowly to tighten up on their previous flexibility. Publishers refused to send us books until we paid our past-due invoices, while continuing to ship Borders their books, despite their payment difficulties.
Random House, for one, went even further. It put us on a ‘cash basis,’ meaning that we had to pay in advance for all books that we received. Two different applications to have our credit line re-established have been rejected because of our “payment history.” Its differing payment terms constitutes a loan on behalf of Goerings Book Store to Borders. Arranged by Random House! We and other independents are helping to finance those more lenient terms it is giving to Borders.
Meanwhile our state and local governments intervened on behalf of our internet competition. The Florida legislature has refused to tax internet sales while local governments raised the sales tax that our customers have to pay. The substantial tax advantages that Amazon.com and its customers enjoy began, we believe, to make a difference three years ago.
Weakened but still selling good books, we consolidated our stores in College Park. Three blocks from the heart of the campus, just off the main drag in Gainesville, with good parking, the College Park store would seem to be well located. The neighborhood is a good place for restaurants, bars, and Gator shops. But not trade book stores. Recently our sales have been severely affected by the ‘great recession’ and a fall off of customer counts. It has become obvious at this point that an independent trade book store like Goerings Book Store was no longer possible in the Gainesville market.
But, hey, we survived for thirty-eight years by meeting adverse market situations and by having wonderful, loyal customers.