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Stores Turn the Page to Lucrative Sideline Items

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

As they waited for a friend to finish shopping at Borders Books and Music in Sherman Oaks, Matt Kelliher and Joyce Chan wandered around a gift display.

A bag of gourmet jellybeans caught the attention of the thirtysomething shoppers, bringing them to a table that also featured chocolate cigars and candy golf balls.

The display was one of several between the music department and the cafe. Here, shoppers can recharge their batteries with a cup of joe or purchase items, such as bagged coffee, tea infusers, mugs and thermoses.

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Kelliher and Chan were soon rejoined by their friend Tanya Roton, who was waving the item that had drawn them into the store: “1” the newly released CD of Beatles chart-toppers, on sale for $11.99.

Though Borders is the nation’s No. 2 bookseller, not every shopper is there for the books. The same is true at superstore rival Barnes & Noble, which adheres to the books/music/cafe/events formula Borders launched in the early 1990s.

Barnes & Noble, which has three Valley locations, expanded its gift line this year to include Zen gardening kits; office accessories, such as memo holder sets and pop-up calculators, CD case holders and Christmas ornaments.

Industry observers say there’s nothing new about bookstores carrying sideline items. But, with consumers buying more books online or from discount warehouses, bookstores of all sizes are under mounting pressure to lure in shoppers by diversifying their inventory.

“More is expected of us now,” said John Bohman, vice president of merchandising for Crown Books. “Customers want us to do more to ‘wow’ them when they come in.”

In a year in which book sales have been disappointing, Bohman said, Crown’s success has come from sales of sidelines, such high-ticket items as Italian leather journals, diaries, photo albums and pens.

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Bohman estimates that Crown stores, including the Valley locations in Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills, are devoting 30% more floor space to non-book items than they did a couple of years ago.

A similar change has occurred at B Dalton Bookseller. When manager Jeanne Taylor started at the chain’s Northridge store five years ago, the inventory consisted of books and bookmarks.

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Since then, the store has added notebooks, pens and book-related accessories, such as Harry Potter Christmas ornaments. More recently, B Dalton began offering a smattering of popular CDs--strategically displayed by the cash register.

After robust sales of the Billy Bass singing fish--flip a switch and he moves his mouth to the strains of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” or “Take Me to the River”--Brentano’s has added candy, music and other items designed to attract impulse buys.

“People are still coming for the books, but they’ll notice that we have a CD their daughter wants and figure they might as well pick it up here,” said Sherman Oaks store manager Dan McCormick.

At some smaller bookstores, the sidelines have taken on greater importance. Book sales have dropped considerably in the past several years at House of David Jewish Books and Gifts, said owner Moshe Gabay, who believes competition from online book retailers is a key factor.

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The Valley Village store, which opened in 1954 and only recently began carrying a wide selection of Jewish items--including prayer shawls, menorahs, music, computer software and games--now takes in half its revenue from non-book merchandise.

Another reason many independent bookstores are finding the need to expand their non-book inventory is the price competition they face from the superstores.

“Some of these larger chains can actually sell books for less than we can buy them for,” said Judy Levy, owner of Imagine Center Bookstore in Tarzana.

Levy’s store, which specializes in books and gift items designed for spiritual growth, holistic healing and creating sacred spaces, dedicates about half of its retail space to non-book items--desktop fountains, sculptures, goddess accessories, jewelry, crystals and other items based on the Chinese notion of feng shui.

Some book retailers are finding there are limits to how far afield they can go in offering non-book merchandise.

Crown stopped carrying puzzles, games and computer software after concluding that it couldn’t compete with mass merchants and toy stores in those areas, Bohman said.

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Similarly, the chain revamped its greeting card lines, moving toward cards with photographic images and illustrations from books.

“Our customers don’t want anything that approaches Hallmark, because they can go to a Hallmark store for that,” said Bohman. “They’re looking for things that cater more to the educated person who is an avid book reader.”

Tarzana’s Pages Books for Children and Young Adults has expanded its non-book merchandise to include children’s music, spoken audio, videos and soft toys related to the books.

“While books are our core, we find that these sidelines carry the message to our customers that the books have a vitality,” said store owner Darlene Daniel.

Children’s book publishers have become much more aware of the opportunities to sell rights for the creation of such products, she said.

The trend toward expanding merchandise hasn’t affected every bookstore. Dutton’s Books in North Hollywood continues to target the bookstore purist with its cluttered, overflowing stacks of new, used and rare titles, just as it has for the past 40 years.

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That unbending stance still holds appeal for Borders shopper Chan, who likes the fact that at stores such as Dutton’s, she can stumble across titles that she wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Her friend Kelliher agrees. “The mom-and-pop bookstores have more heart,” he said.

Bookstores with a loyal customer base of serious readers can afford to buck the trend. But not every store has that luxury.

When Mary Watanabe moved her Affordable Books & Collectibles shop to Mission Hills, she found that her business--now located in an arcade adjacent to a restaurant, a hair salon and a shoe store--was attracting more window-shoppers than at its previous location, where customers were more likely to have made a special trip to the store.

“A lot of the people I get now are not necessarily readers,” said Watanabe, who specializes in used books. “So I put the cute knick-knacky items in the window to bring them in.”

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One industry analyst believes bookstores small and large will need to pay close attention to finding the right balance of merchandise in the future.

“Stores are not going to be able to offer just one product, but they’re going to have to cater to their customers on different levels, be it a cafe or an Internet offering or the variety of the product mix in the store,” said Avin Mark Domnitz, chief executive of the American Booksellers Assn.

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At Borders Group corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich., executives are always looking for the next big thing that can sensibly be added to the books/music/cafe mix, said Anne Roman, vice president of corporate affairs.

But Roman believes one aspect of the bookstore experience will never change: “People will always love coming in and exploring.”

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