Industry News

Booksellers are welcome to share these new designs with fellow local businesses to further spread the message to shop early and shop local.

An e-commerce conversion rate increase to 5.36 percent, along with a 9.63 percent increase in traffic during the same period, resulted in an average increase in revenue of 26.13 percent for the week ending October 20.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to have a significant impact on small businesses, booksellers should revisit ABA’s archive of information for steps to take now and resources for reopening.

A decrease in direct traffic and referral traffic from social media to IndieCommerce and IndieLite websites may indicate that customers are continuing to shift to in-store sales.

The October Indie Next List e-newsletter, featuring the month’s 20 titles with bookseller quotes in addition to a Q&A with the #1 pick, was sent to more than 682,000 customers at 179 ABA member stores.

An increase in the conversion rate was offset by a decrease in online traffic.

With the increase in online shopping this year, ABA has also seen a sharp spike in the number of fraudulent orders stores are losing money to.

“The community has been welcoming and supportive,” said co-owner Rosario Calatayud-Serna. “Our group is enthusiastic, helpful, and supportive of one another, which has also been a blessing.”

While there were slightly fewer visitors buying online last week, those that were buying were spending more.