Overbooked Airport Stores
Judith Rosen -- 3/20/00
Despite space limitations, publishers are soaring over sales in airport bookstores
In a follow-up to last week's story on the success of airport bookstores, PW sought out the impressions of publishers. Not surprisingly, publishers have a growing appreciation for them and especially the customers they attract--namely financially secure fly-by-night (and day) customers who are often stuck at airports with nothing to do and all day to do it.
Airport stores are "very important," said Ernie Petrillo, v-p, director of field sales for the distribution division of Penguin Putnam, "especially in several categories, number one being the New York Times list. When a new book comes on the list, we see a jump in that book and the author's backlist. For a new Clancy or Cornwell, we might sell six or seven at a newsstand overnight."
Although most publishers call on airport bookstores, they usually present only a small percentage of their list. As much as 90% of a publisher's titles might not work in an airport setting. In turn, the stores then place their orders through distributors, which act as both suppliers and warehousers. To see that everything runs smoothly and to verify compliance on promotions, most large houses--including Random House and Penguin Putnam--have a merchandise force to monitor airport stores as well as key accounts. "We've found it a necessary tool," Petrillo explained. "It's important to stay on top of wholesalers."
Even less bestseller-driven houses work hard to get their titles into the airport stores. "There are key titles that we think work best in airports, so we'll try our best to make sure that they're in major metro stores," Teri Kelly, v-p and director of sales for Houghton Mifflin, trade and reference division, told PW. Among the company's airport bestsellers are popular annuals, for instance, Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. Houghton also designates regional titles for distribution in specific airports, such as last summer's Fenway: A Biography in Words and Pictures by Dan Shaughnessy and Stan Grossfeld, which could be found at every bookstore in Boston's Logan Airport.
For Harvard Business School Press, "Airport stores are a relatively small but very important segment of our overall business," according to Chuck Dresner, assistant director, sales. "We know that a high percentage of our core customers spend a goodly amount of time in airports, so we targeted airport stores a long time ago as a channel in which we wanted to have a strong presence."
Like other publishers, business and trade, Dresner pointed to the difficulty of tracking just how many sales go through airports. "It's hard to measure precisely, because so much of the business is indirect and through wholesalers. We estimate our sales in airports have at least tripled in the last two years." Also like other publishers, the exposure that an airport venue can give Harvard's titles is almost as important as actual sales. "We invest a lot of effort and resources selling our books into airport stores, because we want them exposed to the business travelers. But," he added, "we also expect and achieve a reasonable rate of return in sales."
Dean Karrel, v-p of trade sales, John Wiley & Sons, concurred. "We may be targeting 25-30 books from our list of 200, but it's proven to be successful." He's found that books on management, investment, economics, business biography, personal finance and health work best in the airport setting. This season he's especially excited about the airport potential for Jack L. Groppel's The Corporate Athlete: How to Achieve Maximal Performance in Business and Life, which combines two strong airport bookstore categories, business and health.
For Karrel, airports are just one more business channel: "The long and short of it is that all publishers are looking at ways to support not only the independents but [to] support and find new areas to grow." Like other publishers, he's trying to be creative in making that growth happen. While many houses have increased their "fly-bys," the airport equivalent of "drive-by" signings, Karrel has experimented with straight signings. One unusually successful event involved Robert G. Hagstrom Jr., author of The Warren Buffet Way, who signed 200 books at the Omaha airport prior to the opening of the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha.
As airports come of age, with increased shopping opportunities and partnerships, it's clear that neither booksellers nor publishers want to miss out on the chance for new business. It's too soon to know how the airport mini-superstore trend will play out, but one thing's for sure: book sales for the right book can really take off. Although many of the books are the same as at street stores--Oprah picks, NYT bestsellers, new and noteworthy trade paperbacks--at airports, there's a captive audience that wants to spend. Booksellers just have to find the right way to get them to fly by the book.
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