This article is from the Booksellers Aotearoa NZ archives. It was first published in 2018.
Time Out Bookstore is housed in a historic building, which was built in 1873. It’s long and narrow with wonky brick walls, bring together staff, stock and customers in very close proximity. While the lack of space is very charming, it means we have to get very creative in what we choose to stock and how we display it. Eat your heart out, Kevin McCloud, here’s how we fit as many books as possible into our small space.
Time Out Bookstore is housed in a historic building, which was built in 1873. It’s long and narrow with wonky brick walls, bring together staff, stock and customers in very close proximity. While the lack of space is very charming, it means we have to get very creative in what we choose to stock and how we display it. Eat your heart out, Kevin McCloud, here’s how we fit as many books as possible into our small space.
Shelves, shelves, shelves!
When Wendy bought Time Out 15 years ago, she expanded shelving extensively throughout the shop, especially in the Children’s Room. The con of this was this was removing a couch, but it was all in the name of more books. We now have fold out step stools around store which can double as ladders to reach the bookshelves (which go up to the ceiling) or act as seating for browsing customers.
Order low, but often
A majority of our books are carried as single copies, spine out. Doing movers every night means that these books are constantly on back on order. This ensures that there’s a lot of variety in a small amount of space – we have a large backlist range and there’s lots to browse.
What to put face out?
We only have one substantial area in the store for face out books and any book that goes on here is chosen carefully. Our new release table is what has piles of face out new release stock and above this is shelving for one off face outs.
The most guaranteed books to sell the fastest on this shelf are the staff picks. Frontlist or backlist, a staff member’s handwritten guarantee gives our shop personality and distinction. The fast moving stock also means that we can update this almost daily. We also display prize longlist/shortlist titles and those interesting hardbacks that don’t quite have a category.
Exceptional sidelines
We don’t have very much room for ‘counter crap.’ But the higher margins of giftware means that we do want to have creative & unique sideline items. Often our giftware items have to go high! We’ve been selling socks very successfully for the last 4 years and these are displayed in what was the last available piece of wall space. Our globes are up high, which keeps them on display but also away from sticky fingers.
We also sell mountains of cards. It may get pretty messy and hectic, but we try and fit as many designs on our card stands as possible so there’s lots of choice and it never looks empty.
Bulk out the window
One large space we do have, is our window display area. We pack this to the brim to ensure (like the card stand) that there’s no risk of it looking empty. We do have to make sure all staff know the theme of the window so they can find books easily.
Upstairs – a community space
When Wendy bought Time Out, the upstairs space was a flat. This was soon converted into a meeting space by day and event space by night. This means our buyers can purchase away from the till and book clubs can use the room for free every evening.
Sneaky Storage Space
Ultimately, our space space motto is MORE IS MORE. We do get in danger of being pretty messy looking, but regular tidies by staff keep Time Out as busy, organised and bursting as possible.”