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Bookselling: Independents Fight Back Judith Rosen -- 1/1/01 Two new organizations are making "locally owned" a battle cry for independents At regional trade shows over the past year, Boulder Book Store owner David Bolduc and Jeff Milchen, president and director, respectively, of the Boulder Independent Business Alliance (BIBA), have been offering booksellers a blueprint on how to turn "locally owned" into an advantage. "I see 'locally owned' as a coming marketing strategy that is ours," Bolduc told a group of NEBA stores this fall. "Don't let multinationals, through smoke and mirrors, make it theirs." It took Bolduc four years to get to this point. "I looked around," he told PW, "thinking about what we could do to set ourselves apart from the chain stores." It was then that he came upon the idea of using "locally owned" as a rallying cry for other Boulder independents. "I put up the seed money," said Bolduc, who considers the $15,000 he invested in BIBA well spent. "If I had put that straight into advertising, I never would have gotten nearly as much coverage." With Milchen, Bolduc walked Boulder's downtown area and talked about setting up an organization for locally owned businesses, which he felt were inadequately represented by the Chamber of Commerce. As a result, BIBA, which was officially launched in January 1998, now has 160 members, ranging from a 300-staff hardware store to many single-owner stores. Bolduc hasn't stopped new chains from coming into Boulder. But, he said, when a Borders opened a few blocks away from his store this fall, BIBA had already created an environment in which customers could understand the impact of the chain on the community. A local activist organization, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, organized a day-long demonstration against both the new Borders and the Gap. Through BIBA, Bolduc was able to connect with several other nonbook businesses that were also affected by the superstore openings. Together they have run ads aimed at students, including "You're Not a Clone. Why Shop at One?" For the general public, they played off the BookSense theme, "Independent Businesses for Independent Minds." Legislation, Bumper Stickersand a Web Site BIBA has been instrumental in the Community Vitality Act, legislation that would limit continued encroachment of chain stores in Boulder. The act is intended to force the city to give purchasing preferences to local businesses and to lease city-owned property to locally owned, nonformula businesses. In addition it would limit formula retail stores and restaurants from moving in, by allowing them only to replace existing formula businesses. Whether the act ultimately passes is less important to Bolduc than the visibility it has garnered for BIBA stores. "Taking extreme positions gets attention," he noted. "When you do certain kinds of actions, like legislation, the things that happen because you're walking on that path are crucial: connections with other community groups and a bigger vision of your place in the world." To foster those connections, BIBA has created a Web site (www.boulder-iba.org), bumper stickers, window decals, bookmarks and a biannual directory of members. It even hired a local designer to create a two-color coffee cup that lists the independent cafés on one side and "By buying this beverage from a local, independent business, you've just helped keep Boulder the great town we all love!" on the other. "The thing we're working on now," said Bolduc, "is a frequent buyer's card. Here at the store, we've had a frequent buyer's club where for $10 a year you get a 10% discount off everything. We're looking to have one card, and you can use it at all the stores. Probably the store that sold it would get the sale price, and a percentage would go back to BIBA. The directory could list each store's discount. That makes it flexible for as many people as possible." Salt Lake's Coalition While the Salt Lake Vest Pocket Business Coalition in Salt Lake City is not as well organized in terms of coffee-cup promotions and directories, it has had a big impact on preserving neighborhood businesses that are scattered in pockets throughout the community. Officially launched in March 1999, the group began with six local business owners, including Betsy Burton of the King's English Book Shop, one of two remaining general independent booksellers left in Salt Lake, which once had as many as 11. The six owners went to City Hall to protest the financial incentives offered to chains, which in Burton's case meant the opening of a second Barnes & Noble nearby. "We were angry and were wondering why the city gave such preference to the chains," Burton told PW. Quickly the six swelled to a group of 150 members with political clout. In the last mayoral election, both candidates paid lip service to the importance of small neighborhood businesses. As Burton sees it, promoting locally owned businesses as valuable assets to neighborhoods that give them character "is a movement whose time has finally come. There's a new community awareness." Like Bolduc and Milchen, she's found that the people in her area don't want the continued homogenization of national chains that choke out independents. In a city ringed with Borders, B&Ns and Media Plays, Burton describes her store's business as "struggling, but it's better this year." She is encouraged that her customers want to talk more about the value of her store to the community and they see shopping there as a political act. She believes that if her city provides a level playing field, her business will continue to rebound. "The battle cry of Vest Pocket is ˜We do not want special treatment, we want equal treatment,'" said Burton. "I believe we can compete on a level playing field. Once the chains quit deep discounting, all our customers will come back." For Milchen the next step is to create a national organization, linking not just BIBA and Vest Pocket, but offering support to other communities eager to get started. "We've already laid the groundwork for the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA)," he told PW, crediting BIBA's assistant director Jennifer Rockne with helping him on the project. His goal for AMIBA is "to create a voice on the national level, to help businesses market themselves more effectively, and to create an ongoing campaign about the values of independents in the community." Milchen hopes to get AMIBA up and running sometime in 2001.
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Bookselling: Independents Fight Back
Jan 01, 2001
A version of this article appeared in the 01/01/2001 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
