Wellington’s Arty Bees Books

When a small bookshop in Cuba Street became available in 1988, accountant Robert Burch “took the plunge”, and launched his new career  He changed the name to Arty Bee’s Bookshop and six months later purchased a second shop in Cambridge Terrace. Both shops have relocated several times over the last 22 years, in each case to larger or better locations.

IMAGE: Arty Bees frontage in Manners Street, Wellington

How did they get that name?
Simple: Bob Burch’s initials are RTB. That’s morphed into a rather friendly looking big-winged bee as a white insignia on the staff’s black polo shirts. The bee has elements of Bob’s airforce background – look for the goggles.

Image: David during the move to the new Arty Bees, March 2009.

But that’s not the most interesting thing about this huge, hybrid bookshop. Look at it now: one very big two storied, densely packed bookshop in Manners Street, adjacent to the corner of Cuba Street in Wellington. The staff and the atmosphere are warm and friendly. They have been in that location for almost nine years, but had a major store revamp two years ago when they added the first floor as store space and closed the Courtenay Place shop.

Statistics are 720 sq metres of floor space and an astonishing 130,000 titles in stock.

RTB’s now retired, and his daughter Pippa Burch (pictured above) took over the business eight years ago.

Pippa is a food technologist and more recently a school administrator, a highly transferable skill for running a bookshop.

The opportunity came at a time when she was able to make the career change and she has enjoyed the challenge of growing the business. “The bookstores had enough history to hope it was good to go on. We revamped the logo and started to expand.

"Recently there’s been the hiccup of a long period of roadworks prior to buses returning to Manners Street. Local retailers have found trading grim through the disruption and it has since been slow to pick up.

“But the one thing I hope I never have to do again is move premises!”

Matt Morris (pictured above), 18 years with Arty Bees, is the reigning sci-fi guru and the store’s manager.

It was science fiction that propelled Arty Bees – motor power supplied no doubt by Matt - into stocking new science fiction in 2003.

This specialty has been nurtured to the point where they are probably the most in-depth stockists of the genre over both new and second hand books in New Zealand.

Matt’s not only an enthusiast, but probably the most effective selling force for the section.

(In the early days of Arty Bees Matt used to open his store at night for the company of browsers; to improve his sales skills he read all the titles on selling and tried the techniques. Successfully.)

Later, new detective fiction was added, but to Matt’s sorrow, followers of detective fiction are not as dedicated as the sci-fi crowd! Another recent new books addition is a philosophy section.

IMAGE: Pippa and Jessica at the counter, surrounded by books.

Pippa is most proud of the stocking of new New Zealand books, now in depth over fiction, non fiction and children’s categories. Arty Bees tries to especially support smaller presses and local authors by stocking their titles. New Zealand books, old and new, occupy a quarter of the store’s ground floor.

Other new titles they sell are the Taschen range. This was important to the store in its Courtenay Place location near the Paramount theatre, haunt of film aficionados. Pippa laments that Taschen sales have not achieved the same heights in the new location as they did a few blocks away.

That’s the new, but the old is still the cornerstone of the business. When The Read visits, there’s a steady stream of cartons arriving at the counter. Books are efficiently sorted into two piles – those Arty Bees is happy to buy and titles they are not interested in. In the latter pile there may be duplicates of stock they already hold, damaged or otherwise unwanted books.

IMAGE: Upstairs at Arty Bees

As an accountant, Bob Burch left the business with a formula for purchasing collectable books and the merely recycled that is still applied today. Sellers of books are offered either a credit towards future purchases or a smaller cash sum for the books Arty Bees wants.

The rejects can be either taken away by the person who brought them in, or there is the benevolent option: book rejects are boxed up and given to charities. Some weeks there have been as many as 20 boxes available for the charities they support, says Matt. They can find themselves dealing with one book for resale to a household lot of hundreds.

Valuable collector’s items always arouse the interest of antiquarian booksellers. At Arty Bees, such titles are carefully kept in locked glass fronted cabinets. They are also listed on internet rare books supplier ABE Books website.

IMAGE: Antiquarian Books

Matt has a special fondness for the railway book collections Arty Bees are offered - possibly because these are usually quickly snapped up by other collectors! Sections can expand rapidly when collections are received – such as a magician selling his books, or a household lot of predominantly archaeological titles.

Because Arty Bees Books are paying out for second hand purchases as well as receiving money when selling, the business has had to invest in its own computer software to handle the front counter transactions involved.

Pippa and Matt are backed up by other fantastic staff, many of whom stay for long periods, and currently five of the 12 have been with Arty Bees for between five and twelve years. Several staff are needed because of the store’s long hours of opening: 9am – 9pm Monday to Thursday, 9am – 10pm Friday and Saturday and 11 am – 9pm on Sunday.

Arty Bees bookshop browsers must allow more time than for any bookshop merely selling new titles: there are just so many books to consider. Keen readers should be warned of powerful nostalgia for titles past. On the top floor are more specialist book areas of great width and depth, plus second hand sheet music – Pippa says there is a huge demand for this as new scores are so expensive.

Asking what Arty Bees’ most popular category is reveals the obvious: sci fi is first and second for its recycled and new selections; then it is New Zealand books followed by children’s books.

Next is usually whatever range is in the displays nearest the front door... but to miss exploring the depths of this bookshop would be a mistake.

Arty Bees’ hybrid of old and new is flourishing... just like a great botanical one. It must have been the bee that did it.

Article by Jillian Ewart, writer for The Read