PW: Books, Buyers Both Plentiful at '97 CIROBE Show

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Books, Buyers Both Plentiful at '97 CIROBE Show
Sam Weller -- 11/24/97
A strong international turnout, combined with a higher than usual number of available books at the seventh annual Chicago International Remainders and Overstock Book Exhibition, resulted in what exhibitors and booksellers termed the most successful CIROBE to date.
Held November 7-9 at the Chicago Hilton, the show attracted nearly 1200 buyers from 44 U.S. states and 28 international countries (including 25 representatives from Japan) and continued the CIROBE tradition of buying and more buying. Many exhibitors attributed the high number of orders to the vast range of product available.

According to Brad Jonas of Powell's Books in Chicago and a CIROBE co-organizer, "everyone said that what was on the tables was better quality material with deeper quantities."

And while attendance at this year's CIROBE was only slightly higher than in 1996, perhaps up 5%, Jonas said, the consensus among exhibitors was that sales were up. Most exhibitors reported higher orders than in previous years.On the show's opening day, Robin Moody, president of Daedalus Books, a remainder wholesaler in Hyattville, Md., called the selling frenzy "insane. This is our best book fair of the year. We do more business here than we do at BEA. And the dollars were much better this year because the books that I had bought a lot of copies of, happily, seemed to be the books that we were selling a lot of. We were constantly busy until the very end."

"We bought more than ever," said Fred Bass of the Strand bookstore in New York. "The prices were good, and the type of things we purchased were terrific."

Marshall Smith, cofounder of CIROBE along with Jonas, commented that timing is the key to the remainder business: "More often than not, we sell a lot of tables at the last minute because huge numbers of books become available just prior to the show. That's the way the remainder world works. Things come out of the blue, and they're only there for a short time."

Many exhibitors and sellers seemed to echo a recurring CIROBE theme: each year is bigger and better. "This was the best show we've ever had," offered Jeffrey M. Press, president of World Publications, a promotional and remainder book company in North Dighton, Mass. Press has attended the fair since its inception in 1990. "Bottom line, this is a selling show, and we sold a ton."

Oliver Miller, a buyer from M 's Books, a four-story used-books store in Berkeley, Calif., guaranteed that he will be back. "This show is a great way to stock up, and this year was a bigger fair than in the past. I found lots of books."

If there's one noticeable decline at CIROBE, it is in the number of representatives from independent stores. "One of the things we've noticed," lamented Jonas, "and I think it reflects the rest of the world, is that we're losing some of our smaller accounts."

But even with the declining number of independents, those that were at CIROBE were there to buy. And the chains were there in force. Buyers from Barnes &Noble, Crown and Borders were busy picking up remainders, browsing the university press white sales (which discount certain quantities of books for a limited time) and promotional books.

For booksellers interested in religious and scholarly titles, the choices were plentiful. Sharon Heggeland from Tyndale House Publishers was quite pleased with this year's CIROBE. "We had some very significant orders. We're very happy. No doubt, we'll be back next year," she said.

Representatives from university presses around the country also reported strong sales figures, particularly on CIROBE's first day when the mad dash for white sales was on. "I saw a lot of foreign interest," said Sara Walz of the University of Iowa Press. "We came here because we needed to move some things out of our warehouse, and I think we sold most of it."So can CIROBE continue its upward swing in attendance and product? Only next year will tell; the 1998 show is scheduled for Oct. 16-18.
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