Church

Region: West

Location: First floor of new, freestanding ministry building on church campus

Five-star rating:

Appearance

Inventory

Staff 0

External appearance: To reach the bookstore, customers walked through an expansive, open-air "living room" complete with comfortable sofas and chairs, lamps on end tables and huge potted palms. Light streamed through the broad expanses of glass above and around the area. Huge glass doors, folded off to the side, evidently close the space during inclement weather and off-hours.

Window display: Behind the ministry tour desk, there was a wall-sized display case with sections featuring individual ministry titles. Other cubicles featured three mugs, small sculptures and a variety of gift items.

Entrance: A postcard spinner was directly to the left of the wide entry. To the right, in front of the registers, CD display units were filled by a single title--perhaps a visiting artist? A single ministry title--also at least 50 deep--was also on offer.
Layout and inventory: Cards and music to the left, books center and back, children's section to the right, with gifts and jewelry throughout. Small signage on shelves indicated book categories.

The children's section was a clean and tidy little square with most titles face front at child-eye level. In the center of the children's nook, a round, blackboard table, with thick pieces of sidewalk chalk, filled a bag in the table center.

Inventory included a wide range of products, from secular lawn ornaments to pink enamel breast cancer awareness pins. An extensive ministry trinket section included the usual bookmarks and paperweights, but also thimbles and nail files with ministry images. A clearance section at the back of the store featured ministry apparel, gifts and obscure books. Seasonal lights and décor elements, including two large silk florals, added to the sparkling visual appeal.

Jewelry was everywhere, including four Siemon display kiosks to the right of the long register. Product display areas were built into the counter to provide natural breaks between lines of customers. Boxes of unopened product were stacked in front of the registers. Beautiful silver wrapping options with wide, silver-wire bows made a lovely backdrop in one wall section behind the counter--but were almost entirely blocked from view by a stack of brown shipping boxes.

Appearance: The entire store was white, pristine and bright, from the neutral carpeting to at least 10 long track light strips mounted in the high ceiling. Clear acrylic display cubes, artistically positioned throughout the store at a variety of levels and angles, added to the light and airy feeling.

Staff: Three frontliners stayed behind the counter and talked among themselves, though numerous customers wandered in and out of the store and boxes were obviously waiting to be unpacked.

Verdict: Move the ministry impulse items to the front counter to encourage customers to leave with at least an "under $5 memento." Ensure at last one frontliner mingles with customers. Most, like me, wandered but did not buy.

Re-think the product mix. Inventory seemed heavily weighted toward jewelry: Do sales justify that?

Add campus signage directing visitors to the store.

If this were your regular store? It wouldn't be, unless I was a jewelry hound.

Would a non-Christian feel comfortable here? Sure.

What will you remember of your visit a week from now? An oddity: a small acrylic display box next to about 50 copies of a ministry title, with packets of pills inside the box and no explanation--no label on the box or the pill packs. Are the pills addressed in the book? Do they belong elsewhere?

Store Manager Responds: The store did not respond to invitations to comment.