A Top 10 2025 1st Quarter (Q1) Checklist

Congratulations! You made it through the retail holiday season. Take a deep breath…now on to the new year. Here’s a Top 10 First Quarter (Q1) checklist of great ways to kick off the year:

1. The holiday season isn’t really over until you debrief.

• Debrief the holiday season with your staff to make improvements and inform your planning for next year’s holiday season. (What did you all wish you had known going in? What would you all like to improve for next year? What customer feedback did you hear?)
• Review your social media analytics to inform your social media plans for the new year.
• Follow up with new customers to thank them for visiting your store, website, Bookshop.org page, pop-up, and/or mobile store during the holidays. Repeat contact makes for repeat customers!
• Conduct a customer survey to get valuable feedback from new customers and your best customers.

2. Your lowest priority (when things get busy) can be your highest risk. Now is a good time to prioritize cybersecurity:

• Change the passwords on all store computers, websites, and social media platforms.
• Update all store computer software and apps.
• Conduct virus scans on all store computers.
• Back-up all store data and records for year-end, either on the cloud or on a server.
• Review fraud red flags with staff and train them to check ABA’s Fraud Report to see recent suspicious activity reported by other stores prior to processing orders.
• Train staff on cybersecurity including phishing scams. These are very common and several bookstores were victims of these scams in 2024 with serious consequences.

3. Spring cleaning doesn’t need to wait for spring.

• Now is a good time to prioritize building maintenance. Here’s a useful Retail Spring Cleaning Checklist.
• Clean up your website. “Walk through” your bookstore’s website as though you are a customer, and check everything your customers should be able to do easily. For example, add test orders to the cart, check the calendar listings, and make sure the contact info and directions to the store are up to date.

4. Share Your Data and Make Your (Data) New Year’s Resolutions

• Click on ABA’s one-second surveys in the January 1 edition of Bookselling This Week (BTW) to let ABA know how your holiday sales and annual sales were.
• Fill out ABA’S Annual Sales Survey. The survey will be distributed via email on January 3 and in BTW on January 8.
• Fill out ABA’s Annual Membership Satisfaction Survey. The survey will be distributed via email on January 28 and via BTW on January 29.
• Fill out ABA’s Annual Publisher Survey in February.
• Commit to reporting to ABACUS, ABA’s free financial survey of independent bookstores. This data creates industry benchmarks, helps stores analyze their financials and find opportunities to improve profitability, and informs ABA’s prioritization of education and programming. Watch BTW for announcements about how to start preparing for the opening of the 2024 survey in April.
• Commit to showing publishers the value of the indie channel. Contribute to the Indie Bestseller Lists by reporting your store sales. (Use Edelweiss’ Basecamp — sign up now for a free one-year subscription!) Nominate your favorite upcoming books for the Indie Next List and Kids’ Next List.

5. Spread the love that is Winter Institute.

• If you or someone on your staff are attending Winter Institute, plan a “mini-winni” (Thanks, Bank Square Books and Savoy Bookshop, for this great idea!) for early March. Have staff who attended Wi2025 share their key takeaways with the whole team.

6. Staff is always the priority.

• Celebrate the success of the season with a post-holiday get together. Pizza and a “thank you” goes a long way. And don’t forget to invite your holiday hires.
• Check in with staff to see how they’re feeling post-holidays. January can often feel anticlimactic after the holiday rush, leaving staff feeling burned out or blue. One-on-one meetings with everyone on your team can help with morale and staff retention.
• Schedule vacations for everyone on your team during this slower time. Even a few days off can be beneficial.
• This is a great time to prioritize updating personnel information. Double-check that you have everyone’s correct addresses for tax forms, phone numbers for contact, and emergency contacts in case of an emergency. Use the Employee Check-in template from the Bookstore Resource Library to invite your staff to give updates.
• Remind staff about the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) — assistance for booksellers with unforeseen medical and financial emergencies and mental health services.
• Discuss your policies and procedures for dealing with curation challenges with staff before they happen.

7. And while you’re thinking about emergencies…

• Invest 40 minutes in protecting your business. Check out the “This is a Fire Drill” webinar, listen to the podcast, and/or review resources to learn about the top crises stores experience, how to mitigate the risk of these events occurring in your store, and how to respond to these crises if they do occur. Topics include: fire, flood, and natural disasters; protesters, break-ins, and ransomware; credit card fraud and cybersecurity; and more.

8. Invest in Time to Think About Money

• Invest a couple of hours in quiet time reviewing your financials. This is an opportunity to take a break from your day-to-day fire fighting and focus on your store’s sustainability. Hopefully you participated in ABACUS last year and can use your customized report. If not, a general ABACUS 2023 report is available on BookWeb. Watch “Decoding the P&L” for ideas on how to save money, how to discuss financials with staff, and how to view ABACUS and your financials to assess where you’re doing well and where there’s opportunity to improve profitability.
• Now’s a good time to take on any necessary large capital expenses like new POS systems or computers, new fixtures, or building improvements. You’ll have cash from the holiday season and gain the maximum amount of depreciation expense for the year by doing it early.
• Sign up for Batch to make paying invoices more efficient (and greener). It’s free and the more booksellers who sign up, the more publishers who will join, the more savings through efficiency for the industry. (All UK booksellers and publishers use Batch and wonder why we don’t!) And if you incur bank fees, Batch will reimburse you one fee per month for six months! Contact Nathan Halter for more information or assistance.
• Create a cash flow projection for the year. You can check out the webinar, “Prioritizing Cash Flow: 10 Areas to Review for Improved Cash Flow and Profitability,” and use ABA’s cash flow template to learn more about understanding, managing, and predicting your store’s cash flow!

9. In the bookstore world, the holiday season is like a party and the post-party clean up is all about inventory.

• Double-check your inventory on hand to make sure your database is accurate.
• Clear out the special orders and holds that weren’t picked up.
• Review publisher-shared markdowns and put designated titles on sale to clear them out and minimize the shipping and payroll costs of returns.
• Start returning books that are eligible for credit.

10. Plan the New Year!

• 365 days (give or take) lie ahead. Make the most of them by setting goals for the year.

Happy New Year!