Trinity Commons Books and Gifts in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, operated by the nearby Episcopal Church for 10 years, is to close at the end of the year.

"The plight of all independent bookstores is the competition with online discounts and free shipping," the store's manager, Michael Lawrence, told The Cleveland Plain Dealer. "It's really taken its toll on specialized bookstores."

The newspaper described the store as "a major theological bookstore in the region," carrying 15,000 titles, including rare spiritual classics. "It's the end of an era," said Lawrence. "It's really hard to see it go."

In Riverside, Calif., Grove Community Church closed its restaurant and bookstore in September. Rodney Couch, whose company consulted the church before the operations opened in 2003, told The Press-Enterprise: "People's discretionary spending is affected even when they're at church."

The newspaper noted that the closures "illustrate how church bookstores and cafes, which in recent years have become an increasingly common part of church ministries—especially at large evangelical congregations—can face some of the same financial pressures as for-profit businesses during a down economy." Such operations were "not immune from (the) recession's effects," it said.

Read the full reports and other news in our Industry Radar round-up of other media articles about the Christian retail world at https://www.christianretailing.com/index.php/news/industry-radar.