Continuing our series of tips for retailers, born out of the insights we gleaned from our What's in Store: The State of Independent Bookselling in Canada report, we're bringing retailers some tips on how to manage backlist inventory. (Previous entries in this series have been: Indie bookselling myths busted, Takeaways from the report from Ampersand Inc. and Hornblower Group, Free perks for retailers using CataList, and Can book buyers find your store?)
In What's in Store, we learned that backlist makes up 31% of total merchandise revenue and that 29% of a bookstore's inventory expenses goes towards purchasing new backlist books. Both of those figures are the second largest share of revenue and inventory expenses behind frontlist books. All that to say: Backlist is a big deal in terms of money in and money out. So how can retailers maximize their revenue and make managing backlist titles easier? We're glad you asked.
Perennial bestsellers
Perennial bestsellers are the books that sell consistently well year over year. These ride-or-die bestsellers aren't just weekly or monthly hits; they have proven sales records over longer timeframes, usually several years. Stocking these books might just be the closest you can get to a sure thing.
For those wanting to know the perennial bestsellers in top-level categories over the holiday season, the specific titles that are "tried and true," we have some blog posts for you. Last year we discovered the perennial bestsellers over the last eight weeks of each year from 2015 through 2018 in the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, and Young Adult categories.
If you're curious about second-level subjects and you're a SalesData subscriber, we have an exclusive study, Perennial Bestsellers 2012-2016, that subscribers can access through the Research Portal. The study lists the 20 most reliable books to stock in 17 subjects across the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Juvenile Non-Fiction, and Young Adult categories. This study was published in 2017, and the next one will be in a few years to uncover the perennial bestsellers among books published in 2017 and onward. If you'd like to review titles from earlier editions of the study to see which books are still talked about today, the 2010-2013 and 2006-2009 editions are in the Research Portal sales trends section as well.
But maybe you want to see perennial bestsellers using year-to-date 2019 data or you want to investigate a different subject category than the ones explored in the Perennial Bestsellers 2012-2016 report. What to do? Well, while we use a different methodology in our studies that takes sales spikes into account, you can still get similar results by using the Bestseller Report in SalesData to see the bestselling backlist titles over the past five years. Just follow these steps:
1. When you're on the criteria page for the report, choose your Reporting period. For this example, we'll look at the week ending Dec. 30, 2013 to the most recent reporting period in November 2019.
2. Scroll down to select the Pub date end date. We've chosen Dec. 31, 2014 to try to capture more perennial bestsellers, but you can choose whichever end pub date lines up with how you define backlist. You can also select up to 10 subject categories or other choose other filters relevant to your interests.
3. Click Run Report to see the bestselling backlist titles over the past five years. (Aren't filters the best?)
Gap Analysis Reports
Did you know you can use the Gap Analysis Report in SalesData to help manage your backlist titles? Here's how!
1. First, log in to SalesData and jump over to Gap Analysis in the left-hand menu.
2. Once you're there, select the Inventory Performance tab. Set your Home market to your own store. Your Comparison market should be the market whose sales you want to compare yours against. Do you want to know what's performing well across Canada? Choose All Markets. Do you want to know what other independent bookstores are selling in high quantities? Select the Independents Market. If you have a Peer Group or other similar group to compare against, this is also a great option!
3. After you select the timeframe for your Reporting period, you’ll need to use the Pub date filter to isolate backlist titles. Here, we've set up a filter on the assumption that backlist titles are at least one year past their pub date. Leaving the start date blank means you're pulling in titles published any time prior to your established end date.
4. Click Run Report to get your results. You will see a list of backlist titles that were sold in the selected comparison market but not sold in your store even though you had them in stock. It can help you identify under-performing inventory and decide which titles you may want to discount, reposition, or return.
You can follow a similar process with the Bestseller Gaps report. Once you have your results, you'll see a ranked list of the Comp Market's bestselling backlist titles for your selected reporting period, as well as a view of your Home Market's sales of the same titles. Now you can quickly see at a glance if there are any opportunities for backlist titles already selling in your store!
Are you interested in signing up to see more data like this? Check out SalesData, the sales tracking service for the Canadian English-language trade book market. If you are already a subscriber and still have questions, or want SalesData training, contact us!
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