More Than Word of Mouth to Scare Up Business

When Del Howison, 48, and his wife, Sue, decided to open an all-horror retail shop, they envisioned selling collector’s edition books to people who happened by their Burbank location. They started out by displaying their private book collection on card tables at horror fan conventions and comic book shows, adding some gift items and knickknacks as an afterthought. Throughout the years, their business has evolved and matured, Howison says, and their business plan and sales philosophy have had to change as well. Howison was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.

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When Sue and I met through mutual friends in the early ‘90s, we found out we were both interested in the horror genre and were big fans of horror books and films. We also realized that it was difficult to find horror-related collector’s items and gifts that were specifically tailored to Halloween. Between the two of us, we had a huge book collection, so we attended some horror and fantasy fan conventions and ran a book table. After doing a couple of shows, we saw there was interest and decided to open a storefront when we found a location in Burbank.

The original business plan was for a bookstore that also sold a few accessories, with probably an 80-20 mix. We started with our own books and $5,000. Our original location was on a block with a lot of foot traffic because we hoped to attract customers that were passing by. But we found out that we are a destination location. Someone picking up their dry cleaning or dropping off a package at Mail Boxes Etc. is not going to wander into our shop and buy a ring with a skull on it. People come here from all over Southern California, and since we’ve been on the Web, they come from all over the world. We’re a must-see stop on their visit to Los Angeles.

We also found that horror collectors wanted action figures, soundtracks, necklaces, light fixtures--you name it. Our inventory is now about 50-50 split between books and genre-related gift items. And our customers encompass everyone from Academy Award-nominated horror filmmakers to the kid on the corner who goes to Goth clubs. Once we realized how popular the accessories were, we started going to gift shows and finding many products that were not carried in normal retail and toy stores: coffin-shaped wine cabinets, ladder-bat chairs, wall sconces with skulls on them, you name it. As long as the product leans toward our genre, it fits our business plan and we carry it. Now we go to auctions and estate sales and find 100-year-old hallway benches with gargoyles carved on them. People came out of the woodwork to buy things and sell things to us that they had no other outlet for.

So, our business plan had to be revised year after year. We changed from a horror bookstore to a genre-oriented horror store. In order to keep a wide appeal, we adopted a broad sales definition of horror, from “Silence of the Lambs,” to “Alien” to “Casper.” But we kept our niche and never sold masks, makeup or costumes because we didn’t want to be a Halloween store. Since we opened in December 1994, the genre has really caught on in popularity, and it’s become huge. Our first year, we did a total of $65,000 in revenue and spent $24,000 on rent alone. It was a good thing that we both kept our regular jobs for a couple of years. There were times during that early period when we’d be open all day and not one customer would come into the store. It was scary!

Once we realized we were a destination store, not a foot-traffic store, we hit on the idea of book signings and author appearances. Word of mouth is great, but you have to give people a reason to be here. We started hosting evenings for horror authors, filmmakers and special-effects guys. I started to see that this could be a gathering place for fans of the genre, where they could hang out and talk about horror without other people looking at them like they needed to be on medication.

Having our customers spend time with us lets us be close to them and listen to them. The trends in horror movies and books come and go, and we benefit when we know what’s popular and what’s coming up next. Giving the publishers and film companies a place to promote their upcoming projects helps also because we get a glimpse into what they’re doing in the future. Since I know at least half of my customers by first name, I can get rare items for them and give them a call when something comes into the store that I know they collect, to let them know that they might want to take a look at it when they come into town.

Having an active mailing list--we have more than 2,000 names now of people who signed up voluntarily--is also a great thing that we incorporated into our business plan a few years ago, along with a book club. Once every two months, we send out postcards and e-mail a newsletter. We tell our customers about upcoming book signings and appearances, and we take advance orders for personalized, signed books. I had a signing recently and sold only 228 copies at the event, but my book club members from places such as Boise, Idaho, or Des Moines had pre-ordered so many that we sold out.

We took the pre-order idea to our Web site as well. When it was time to order new inventory, we used to spend all our time guessing: “Oh, nobody’s going to want that” or “People are going to love this!” And a lot of the time, we were wrong. But when you stay in touch with your customers, it’s much easier. If we get 20 pre-orders for action figures or cookie jars that are being released in conjunction with a new movie, I’ll know that the item is going to be quite popular, so I’d better order 30. If we have only pre-sold four pieces, I can tell this particular item isn’t going to do very well, so I might only order eight. It really helps, so we don’t get stuck with a large inventory of any gift or toy that doesn’t sell.

The Web site has brought us customers from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and England. They make our store one of their stops when they visit L.A. I make it a point to carry things here in the store that they can’t find on the Web site because I think that the online presence is really a supplement to the store itself, not a separate entity. I want to give them a reason to walk through the doors. We’ve become so well-known that horror filmmakers even use our storefront as a frequent background location. It’s like shooting in front of the Statue of Liberty for horror fans. They shoot a scene with our store in it, and people recognize it from our Web site, or having visited here, or the publicity we’ve gotten all over the world. There’s something I would have never foreseen when we started, and another reason our business plan has to grow and change all the time.

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At a Glance

Company: Dark Delicacies

Owners: Del and Sue Howison

Nature of business: Horror book and gift store

Location: 4213 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank 91505

Founded: 1994

E-mail: darkdel@darkdel.com

Web site: www.darkdel.com

Employees: 0

Annual revenue: $180,000