At first Crimson blush, it may seem that Harvard Book Store would be a relatively simple business to run.
After all, in the 40 years since Frank Kramer started working there after the sudden death of his father, Mark Kramer, the store has been located in the same building, has key employees who have worked there for decades, has an enviable name for an independent unaffiliated with Harvard University, and, of course, is located in a quintessential college town that draws students, academics and other book lovers from around the world.
Kramer himself says he is "lucky" that his father, on opening the store in 1932, named it Harvard Book Store rather than, say, "Mark's Book Store," and that he located it in Cambridge, "not Dorchester," where the family lived at the time.
But the reality of the well-designed, smoothly run bookstore located across Massachusetts Avenue from the main Harvard University campus and a few short blocks from the center of Harvard Square is deceptive. In the time that Frank Kramer has been at the helm, Harvard Book Store has gone through several incarnations—and continues to evolve. In material about itself, the store says it has "operated 10 different bookstores serving every aspect of the book buying marketplace."
Consider: when Kramer took over the store in 1962, its primary business was buying and selling used textbooks and remainders in a tiny, plain space, with two satellite stores that also specialized in texts. Since then, Kramer has closed the two text stores, opened a flourishing bookstore café in Boston (which closed because he couldn't renew the lease), opened and closed several other stores to serve transitory markets, changed the main store's focus to new, used and remaindered literary and scholarly books (no textbooks anymore), expanded to 5,500 square feet on two floors in a beautiful space (with soaring windows, exposed granite columns and warm cherry fixtures) and created an ambitious range of events. Perhaps most significantly, Harvard Book Store created and continues to implement a strategic plan that focuses on getting close to customers in both tried-and-true and novel ways.
Planning to Grow
In early 1999, as competition from chain and online booksellers became particularly intense, a group of top employees, including Kramer and head buyer and v-p of merchandising Carole Horne (a 28-year veteran), met off-site and debated how best to survive and grow.
The group, which used a facilitator, came up with a strategy that emphasizes the store's strengths and services, or as Kramer puts it, "how to zero in on who we were and how to build relationship with customers."
One of the first changes made as a result of the new approach was that the store began doing more special orders and renamed the department "customer orders" to reflect that taking care of customers was not "special" but de rigeur. (The department started with two employees and now has four and a half.) The store doesn't wait for an accumulated order. The order goes right to the wholesaler. "We get the order as fast as we can," Kramer notes.
A "primary objective" reiterated at every Tuesday morning team meeting encompasses one of the main goals of the strategy session—"to establish a one-on-one relationship with at least 15,000 customers" with a goal being that customers will say, "I buy most of my books at Harvard Book Store."
Repeating this message to himself and the store's booksellers is important, Kramer says, even after three years. Booksellers need to know their major role, he continues, adding, "The customer can have a flat experience or a bookseller can intervene and make it a great experience."
A key part of the long-term strategic plan is the frequent buyers program, which started a decade ago using a familiar approach. Under the old program, customers received a card that was stamped when they spent $10 or more. After 10 stamps, they received a 30% discount on a sale of up to $500. Kramer calls the terms "very aggressive" and perhaps "too successful": 21% of sales were at 30% discounts. "It was a survival strategy, and we took a chance," Kramer comments. But the store couldn't afford it, which led to a revision within two years: after 10 stamps, customers were eligible for a 20% discount on a sale of up to $200.
The biggest change in the program came in February 2001, when Harvard Book Store introduced a bar-coded card and bar-coded key ring attachment for its frequent buyers. Under the new system, customers give their name and address and other information. Their cards are read electronically at purchase, and data about the purchases is stored.
The new electronic version of the program allows the store to track buyers and their purchases. (Under the old system, "we had 100,000 people in the world walking around with this card," Kramer says, but most of the redeemed cards had illegible names and addresses, and the store knew little about these important customers.) The revamped program has nearly 35,000 members, and the store is adding about 400 a week.
Soon the company will start doing surveys of frequent buyer cards. For now, the information is already "helping us make choices," Kramer says, opening new opportunities for more precise marketing. (The store asks customers' permission for this.) "For example," Kramer says, "we can send out new philosophy titles for the month" to heavy philosophy book buyers.
In a related move, in December Harvard Book Store began sending a weekly "broadcast," or e-mail newsletter, called News from Harvard Book Store. The broadcast includes information about author events and new books, highlights new remainders and lists the store's weekly bestsellers (10 hardcovers and 10 paperbacks), which are discounted 20%. The broadcast is sent to some 13,000 people, many of whom are frequent buyer members.
Newsletter editor and marketing manager Nancy Fish, who also writes the monthly print newsletter, sends the broadcast before the weekend so that customers have time to come in on Saturdays and Sundays to buy the books at their discounted price.
Customers Are Academic
Connecting with Harvard Book Store customers, whom Kramer calls "sophisticated" and "challenging," is not a cake course.
As part of the 1999 strategy session, the store's customer base was divided into "types." The most important group, unsurprisingly, is academic, which includes the three segments of faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students, each of which has "different needs," Kramer says.
"Academics are such an important part of the business," he continues. "They buy, write and recommend books. They want cutting-edge stuff. They have high expectations."
There are also foreign academics and "traveling" academics—the many scholars and others who teach at or attend conferences and seminars in the area. (Many of these people from around the world have Harvard Book Store frequent buyer cards.)
These academic buyers are, Kramer says, "voracious" book buyers who "feel good in great bookstores." They are "discriminating and know the difference between Harvard Book Store and a typical chain." Many of them feel they have "a voice in the selection" at the store, Kramer continues. "They say this store speaks to me. They love this store because we support them."
Another type of customer is the "neighborhood" resident who, because of Harvard Square's busy street life and university setting, tends to like an "intellectually stimulating environment." They buy children's, travel and health books, as well as a lot of fiction.
Another group is tourists, a "substantial market," that seeks "an intellectual travel experience." Because of its history, Boston is a major attraction. Likewise, tourists are drawn to Harvard Square and its bookstores. Harvard Book Store "exemplifies Harvard Square better than any other store," Kramer says.
Events and Signings
Because there is little free space in the store, most events are held off-site. Harvard Book Store's best-known events are probably its reading series at the Boston Public Library, where it co-hosts about 10 events a season and sells books. (The Library has an auditorium that seats 300.)
Most other store events are held "all over Cambridge," Kramer says. He laments that there is no large event space in the store, because events would then feel more literary and attendees would likely buy more things.
So for now, events are more complicated than they are for most other stores. Besides the Boston Public Library, the store arranges for events at such places as the Sackler Museum and the Cambridge Public Library. To hold events on the Harvard campus, it needs a university co-sponsor and works with such institutions as the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Education or groups like Friends of the Harvard Art Museums or Amnesty International. Many of these groups have their own newsletters; the store and groups do "a lot of cross-pollination," adds Nancy Fish, who books most off-site events. She also attends many of them and introduces the authors.
The events, which average four a week during spring and fall, take "a tremendous amount of energy and effort," Fish admits. The store does them "because they're a community service, we have improved relationships with publishers and they make the store a happening place." Although the store tries to avoid an event if it anticipates selling fewer than 20 books, "We feel an event is successful if the author has a good experience."
The store also does signings in the store, and one series is held in the fiction section, which has moveable fixtures: The Friday Forum, organized by Amanda Darling, the academic marketing coordinator, features scholarly works, often by a professor who has written a book, both local and national. It's usually held at 3 p.m. on Friday during the academic year.
Darling also works with the university and other groups to sell books at events and provide other services, such as preparing bibliographies. A Nieman Foundation for Journalism conference on narrative journalism featuring Rick Bragg and Nora Ephron, among others, drew 800 people. Harvard Book Store acted as "the bookstore," bringing some 200 titles.
Another program is the Competitive Advantage Series, a breakfast reading that features the author of a business book. The series, held four times a season at area hotels, has run for five years. For $90, attendees receive breakfast and a free copy of the speaker's book. The events usually draw 50—60 people. Harvard Business School Press is a big supporter, Kramer notes, usually sending 10 people to such events.
Core of the Store
Carole Horne, who, other than Kramer, is the most visible Harvard Book Store bookseller—she is a former board member of the American Booksellers Association and former president of the New England Booksellers Association—is responsible for new book buying and in-store merchandising. She buys about two-thirds of new titles, while Chuck Pacheco does a third of the front list and a third of the backlist. Danielle Zielinski is responsible for the other two-thirds of backlist buying.
Because of the store's academic emphasis, it has difficulties with some publishers about getting trade discounts on titles the houses sometimes assume are used for classroom texts. "Many academic books are simply bestsellers for us and not for classes," Horne says.
Harvard Book Store orders from its 30 biggest suppliers weekly and does wholesaler reports twice-weekly, "usually new bestselling frontlist." The customer service department orders daily from wholesalers, who fulfill about a third of customer orders.
Like many booksellers, Horne says the continuing mergers and consolidations in the book business have caused headaches for the store. "There are never no changes" when houses combine, she says. But in general, she continues, it is "probably easier to buy books" these days because electronic data interchange has made it more efficient and helped speed up shipping.
Wholesalers are generally better, and discounts are better, in large part because the American Booksellers Association lawsuit "got co-op and discounts for independents that we would never have seen," she says.
What's in Store
Fiction is the bestselling section, followed by philosophy, which Kramer calls one of the store's "strongest sections." No wonder that Oxford University Press is one of the store's top five vendors. Other strong sections include cultural/critical theory, cognitive science, politics, African-American studies, and business. There is a small children's section, small because "it's not what the core constituency comes here for," Kramer says.
Harvard Book Store features a "Select 70" section, which changes monthly and includes five Book Sense picks, the 20 weekly Harvard Book Store bestsellers and titles chosen by the buyers and other staff members. (The store also selects a "Holiday Hundred" for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.) All these special titles are offered at a 20% discount.
The hottest remainders and a used-book selection are near the front door. Also prominently highlighted on tables up front: new fiction and nonfiction. A "spotlight" table includes a display on any of a variety of subjects (recently it was "The City"). Harvard University "core class" titles are displayed near the door at the beginning of each semester.
Downstairs are the main remainder and used-book sections. Steve Pasechnick, who heads the used books department, notes that most are paperback and that popular categories include art, philosophy, classic studies and fiction. Some categories like mysteries aren't well represented in the new book section of the store but are very popular in the used section.
The department buys, prices, sorts and shelves used titles in the section, which stocks as many as 15,000 titles. The store is very selective in buying. The staff, which includes Hilary Brant, who has eight years experience in the used-book section and 15 years at the store overall, and Michael Femia, knows the market very well.
The store usually prices books at a little more than half their list price, and higher for "very old" books. The store pays either 15% of the cover price in cash or 20% in store credit. Most sellers take cash, Pasechnick notes.
Jerry Justin runs the remainder department, using sources he prefers not to divulge. The only regret about remainders that he and Kramer have is that they can't obtain more of them.
Harvard Squares, Harvard Ties
Harvard Square has always been "a very competitive environment," as Kramer puts it. Not long ago, there were 25 bookstores in the immediate area, many of them used. In part because of rising rents and competition from the Internet and superstores, many of them have closed. (Mall chain stores never really had an effect, and superstores, because of their size, "couldn't get a foothold in Harvard Square because there are no 25,000-sq.-ft. locations," Kramer notes.) The major bookstores left include the Harvard Coop, which is run by Barnes & Noble College; WordsWorth; Grolier Poetry Book Shop; and Schoenhof's Foreign Books.
Harvard University and some of its divisions have been very supportive of the store, Kramer says. The university is the store's landlord and charges a below-market rent in part because "they see us as an asset to the community and to the university."
Concerning the name, the university says that "our use of it is in good taste." And he emphasizes, "We are Harvard Book Store, in Harvard Square."
Although the Coop, which is run by B&N, is the official bookstore for the University, Harvard Book Store buys books for some classes, particularly core classes. Harvard Book Store is also the official provider of titles for Harvard's women's studies program.
The store also has a strong relationship with Harvard University Press, which Kramer characterizes as "very supportive of bookstores." (One example: the press has let the store sell press titles at conferences at which the press displays—and sells—its books.)
In an unusual and highly effective application of just-in-time delivery, Kramer also happily admits to occasionally running to the press's showroom to pick up a book that a customer wants but isn't in stock at Harvard Book Store.
Staff Matters
The store has a staff of 42 (or about 39, factoring in part timers), some 30 of whom belong to a union. When voted in 12 years ago, the union was part of District 65 but is now affiliated with the United Auto Workers.
Owner Kramer says that the relationship between union and management is so amicable that "we do the negotiating among ourselves, with no lawyers." The union recently signed another three-year contract.
Since 1971 the store has had a profit-sharing plan. "I've always believed people go into the book business because they love books. It's hard to make a good wage." As a result, "if we're successful, we share the profits."
Kramer says the store hires people who are "bright, quick learners, can get up to speed fast with complex tasks and know books. We want people who work hard and care about customers."
"We expect a lot," he continues. He meets each new bookseller soon after their arrival and tries to convey that "this place in unique. This is not just another job, where you put your time in."
Harvard Book Store History
After majoring in classics at Brown, Frank Kramer's father tried law school but "hated it." He knew the owners of Book Clearing House, "one of the best bookstores in Boston," Frank Kramer said, and learned a lot from them about buying and selling remainders, their specialty. Then, with $300 borrowed from his parents, he opened Harvard Book Store, which in its original version had 500 square feet of space. Almost all titles were remainders. Quickly the store began offering used textbooks "at the recommendation of professors."
The store became a center for texts at a time when there were far fewer and they were rarely updated, or certainly not at today's rapid pace. In 1962, several texts the store sold in abundance were editions originally published in 1906 and 1907. "We would buy the same book over and over again," Kramer says. "They would literally fall apart."
The store bought from the many students in the surrounding areas, including MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern. (Kramer estimates that today there are 150 higher education schools within 50 miles and more than 250,000 students. "This is one of the youngest cities in the world.")
Over time he moved the store from 19 Boylston Street to a storefront that is part of the current location; selling space was about 800 square feet of space. He also opened stores at Tufts and Northeastern, which primarily sold new and used texts as well as outlines. (The store was so oriented toward academics that at the time, it was a member of the National Association of College Stores but not the American Booksellers Association.)
Mark Kramer died at the age of 56, when Frank was a senior at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Mark's wife, Pauline, who died last year, was deeply involved in the business, too, and wanted it to continue in the family. So Frank quit school, although he got his degree in psychology and philosophy three years later after taking classes part time.
Kramer emphasizes that when he began working full time at the store, "I came into a going concern. I had people who liked being in the business. There were four of them. They weren't out to make a lot of money, but they liked books, liked what they were doing, and had a good time." As a result, "not knowing anything," Kramer let the employees in the main store continue to carry the business. He adds, "I've learned as much from the people who work for me as the other way around."
Those staff members included Chester Clayton, who commuted from Providence, R.I., and worked until he was 70. Walter Byrnes, now 66, had been hired two weeks before Mark Kramer died and continues to work at the store today. "There's not much he doesn't know," Kramer says. "If he is asked once about a book, he remembers it forever. He has brought stability and a sense of history to the business. He's been an ally, supporter, and learned the business with me."
He admits to being a nonreader in his early years. "But I was always around books and I've always felt good about being a purveyor of ideas and contributing to society. It's not like selling shirts or shoes."
Frank Kramer began to change things almost immediately. He closed the Tufts store and sold the Northeastern store to Marshall Smith, who had just opened, in Harvard Square, the first of his Paperback Booksmith stores and who is co-owner of Brookline Booksmith, the 1998 PW Bookseller of the Year.
In 1966, Kramer took space in a building behind the store and created the Law Annex, which specialized in law books and helped supply the seven nearby law schools. Managed by Chester Clayton, who "made it work," the annex sent out material to law libraries across the country and closed in 1984 only because the building was remodeled and "we couldn't find another good location," Kramer says.
In 1971, perhaps the most significant change took place: storefront space at the corner of building the Harvard Book Store was in went vacant. Although a camera store was between the "old" store and the new space, Kramer went ahead and took it anyway. "It was immediately successful," he says.
Around that time, Kramer became a friend of Bill Kramer, no relation, of Kramerbooks in Washington, D.C. In 1977, Bill Kramer opened his café, one of the first to appear in a bookstore. Frank Kramer had wanted to do something similar but "knew nothing about the café business."
But, as if he didn't have enough to do, "serendipitously things fell into place," particularly after Kramer met a "great" chef, Jasper White, who joined the venture. (White has since written many cookbooks.) Soon afterwards, Kramer hired John Anderson, who approached the Boston Public Library, suggesting the two stage events together. The library agreed, and Harvard Bookstore/Café launched one of the first major reading events of its kind. The library supplied the lecture hall and publicized the series to its members. The first year, 25 events were held and included such people as Pauline Kael, Ross Macdonald, Kurt Vonnegut and Gore Vidal.
The Bookstore/Café closed in 1994 because the store couldn't renew its lease. "I loved the café," Kramer says. "It was about more than putting books in someone's hand. It was a very convivial place," where writers gathered regularly. "The stores never made lots of money, but they never lost lots of money either," he says.
By 1984, Harvard Book Store closed the law annex. "Used-text business for us was getting smaller and smaller," and used paperbacks became more important.
In 1987, probably the most important change was made: Harvard Book Store took over the camera shop between its two Massachusetts Avenue stores, creating the space that is now the store. During the extensive renovations, which created the stylish, airy space that exists now, the store was never closed for more than a day "here or there," Kramer says.
"I have done a series of stores any of which could have been done as chain concepts," he says. "I became a book lover. I'm so lucky to be here. It's so stimulating in part because we have such a challenging audience. Our audience is fun to sell to—it makes you feel good."
