Staff and volunteers at Charis Christian Bookstore at First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks in Indian Rocks, Fla., are marking a quarter-century of ministry with a special offer.

The store is offering a 25%-off coupon on any one regularly priced item in an ad in the church's monthly newsletter that is mailed to approximately 2,700 homes. The celebratory offer is also being promoted in the church's weekly bulletin, on the store Web site and on all of the TV screens in the church.

One of the pioneers in the church bookstore movement, Charis was founded to help provide church members with Bibles and greeting cards to send in response to prayer needs. Initially located in a small room measuring just 8 feet by 10 feet, it expanded the following year by adding video rentals to its resources.

Today, Charis occupies 2,400 square feet and is open seven days a week, offering a full range of Bibles, books and gifts under the leadership of Manager Martha Brangenberg.

Guarding against loss in Illinois

An additional benefit of frequent buyer programs has been spotlighted at Harvest Bookstore at Eastview Christian Church in Normal, Ill., by Manager Lorena Allen.

She reported how as well as encouraging repeat business, the program can help protect stores from loss when visitors seek to return items without a receipt.

Allen reminded her team of the value of signing customers up for Harvest's frequent buyer program in the wake of local media reports of the manager of another bookstore in Normal being charged with stealing more than $24,000 in cash and books from his store by taking items home and then returning them.

"It brings to forefront the subject of returns without receipt," Allen said. "This is a great reason to make sure the customer is in the frequent buyer program. We are able to go into the individual account and find the receipt, when it was purchased, all without the receipt present."

Harvest's returns policy is to offer a store gift card credit or refund to the customer's credit/debit card account rather than cash. The item must be in new condition. "We are also able to look up the sales by the item being returned and tell when purchases were made so that we can indeed attempt to prove it was purchased from our store," Allen said.

"Once we find the date it was sold, it is a matter of looking at the sales record for that day and finding out who made the purchase. This can be a bit time-consuming if it was a Sunday purchase.

"We usually try to err on the side of grace—it is something between the customer and God—however, we do not want to be naive in that theft and deceit are prevalent in retail business, even in the church. We may tend to think because it is a church we should not have those issues, but we cannot be a doormat. Accountability to those entering the building has to be a boundary we set.″

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