The Undead Bookshop is in soft launch mode and we’re learning so much about being a nontraditional bookstore!
This weekend we were at the Queer Mercado for our first time setting up as a 10×10 space. For us, this was a real test of all the preparation we have done over the last few weeks. Because I love transparency about this whole process, I wanted to give a rundown of some things we learned from doing our first market!
Test your equipment Before You Go
A lot of the problems we experienced came from not opening up our equipment and getting familiar with it. Thank goodness for the people next to us who saw us struggling with the canopy and helped us get it setup. (Shadow Moon Awakening has a moving sale going on for all their ceramics. Check it out!) Quickly found out that the signal that I needed to power my phone and payment system was weak and I was unable to take credit card payments. Not even through Apple wallet. More on that in a moment. And when we were trying to leave…the brand new flat bed cart I had just bought was no match for the grass we were trying to drive it over.
The MVP of the setup/takedown process was the wagon with the beach wheels I’ve had for forever. A veritable workhorse that can handle all kinds of terrain and fits so much cargo without getting too weighed down to move. I also got some fold-up shelves from Temu. I was a little scared because it’s Temu and I had no idea what kind of quality I was going to receive. One shelf was the wrong color and one shelf came with a little bit of a bend in it. However, they are very light, very easy to setup and take down, and the colors were exactly what I wanted to see. They definitely gave the store the “wow” factor of being a magical little bookshop in the middle of an open air market.
prepare to take all the payments
As much as I love giving away books (once a librarian, always a librarian), not being able to take credit card payments easily was a real bummer. Some of that could have been me not really understanding how Square works, but I would say most of it was just not having a reliable signal.
My to-do list this week definitely includes checking with my cell phone provider to get a hotspot. I’d love to eventually include my laptop into the payment setup for ordering books on the spot. While I do have a Venmo account and that is how most folks paid for their items, I saw the necessity of having all the major payment accounts available for people to pay. So that’s another thing for me to work on before the big launch.
quantity is always a guessing game
While I tried to my best to research how many books to bring and how many of each title to order, the answer I came up with the most was that…it depends. We haven’t done enough markets to really gather enough data to work on our purchasing strategy. For the most part, I ordered two of each title. If I thought the book might be popular, I ordered three. If I LOVED the book, I ordered five. I’ve only ever done library purchasing so my brain hasn’t fully made the switch over from borrower behavior to buyer behavior. I just kind of did the best I could with what I knew.
Strategy will get better with time, but I think for the time being…even if I loved the book, I’d rather get more titles to fill the shelves than count on everyone being interested in the same books that I am. Which is to say that I will probably order no more than 2 copies of each title going forward. No more than one copy sold of any title (with the exception of Octavia Butler, who has her own shelf) and it’s possible to order books and receive them within a week – in time for the next market.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of this learning process was particularly harrowing. Knowing it wasn’t going to be perfect and choosing to make the best of the experience really carried us through the day. I won’t update after every market, but I’ll try to do some regular business-y posts every once in a while for anyone following along. Mostly, I’m just grateful that I got to see my little dream shop in real life. And that’s the last tip. Move with a grateful heart.
Alright, Ghoulies! Signing out.
-Lauren