Processes and efficiency

The items that decreased for the most respondents were events (for 67% of respondents), wages and salaries (for 48% of respondents), and advertising and marketing (for 43% of respondents).

Change of operating expenses between 2019 and 2020

n=31

Processes and efficiency When we asked booksellers to rank a list of processes in terms of efficiency, we found that the top five processes deemed “very efficient” by booksellers were:

1. re-orders (55%) 2. customer support (54%) 3. submitting/sending orders of new releases (53%) 4. receiving orders/deliveries (49%) 5. selecting titles for purchase (48%)

Top five processes deemed inefficient for some booksellers were:

1. returns to suppliers (16%) 2. doing inventory (12%) 3. re-orders (8%) 4. paying invoices (8%) 5. delivering to customers (8%)

Processes’ efficiency

n=48

*Note that the N/A column is excluded (the total will not equal 100%).

While we asked different things in our previous survey, The State of Independent Bookselling in Canada 2018, and this edition’s survey, we found similar answers from booksellers as to which processes they considered to be very and somewhat

efficient. Of note, respondents increased their efficiency in receiving orders/deliveries to stores, and returns have decreased in their efficiency between 2018 and 2020.

Interestingly, when we segment the processes by bookstore size and combine “very efficient” and “somewhat efficient”, we found that there were only four processes that had clear differentiations: paying invoices, doing inventory, handling customer special orders, and returns to suppliers. For example, all large bookstores considered handling customer special orders to be efficient while on the flipside, a mere 38% of small bookstores found doing inventory efficient.

Processes’ efficiency by size of bookstore

n=35