PRIME submitted photos
By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
What do an independent bookstore, a high-end clothier and a real estate agent have in common?
Plenty, if you look at the business atmosphere of late.
In today’s marketplace, it doesn’t mater what your product is, if you aren’t carving a niche, you aren’t going to survive.
This month, PRIME chats with entrepreneurs who have learned to navigate the new normal.
Making a book-mark
Joan Grenier, owner of the Odyssey Book Shop in South Hadley, has spent three decades catering to people’s literary wants, needs and desires. Thrust into the business in 1985 when the original Odyssey, then owned by her parents, was lost in the first of two fires, she has navigated her way through a changing marketplace with creativity and savvy.
“We are constantly reinventing ourselves,” Grenier said just days before the book shop installed an updated computer system, partially funded by a clever Indiegogo crowd funding campaign that offered contributors exclusive signed books and other perks.
The Odyssey’s approach to business is all about knowing the customer and what he or she wants, Grenier said.
“We do a lot of different things here. We have a signed first edition club, we have a gift of reading club for children– both of those are like a book of the month clubs,” Grenier said. The first edition club, she added, has more than 250 members around the country who receive titles chosen by a selection committee that’s reading proof copies of books several months ahead of printing. The gift of reading books, curated by the Odyssey’s children’s book department, offers monthly selections geared to three different age groups.
“We also do 125 events a year,” Grenier said, adding that the events include a mix for both adult and young readers. The Odyssey arranges many of those events – author readings, book signings and such – through its contacts with publishers; in other cases Grenier said the book shop helps facilitate events by supplying books or a pop-up bookstore or co-hosting with other groups and organizations.
School orders, including supplying the textbooks and art supplies for Mount Holyoke College, an Odyssey program that facilitates author visits to area public schools, and collaborations with local public libraries are some of the additional ways the bookshop tries to gauge and meet customer needs.
On the tech side, Grenier said the Odyssey maintains a robust website, utilizes Twitter – and sometimes Facebook – to promote upcoming events, uses Instagram and Facebook for post-event photos, and sends out a weekly email to thousands of customers. They sell electronic books through the store ‘s website.
“We’re also known for being a knowledgeable staff. There’s a lot of book blurbs [on the shelves] where a staff member has read a book and written a paragraph about it. People are really looking for that kind of hand selling.” Grenier added.
She said the Odyssey also tries to position itself as a community center, sponsoring multiple book groups each month.
“My husband and I do an active citizen book group, there’s a young adult and adult book group, there’s a crime club, there’s a fiction club and there’s a Shakespeare club,” she said.
In October, they are adding writing classes.
“It’s called ‘Write On! At the Odyssey Bookshop’,” Grenier said.
For adults, the classes include “The Art of Fantasy,” “Non-Fiction: Practical Magic,” and “Look Forward to Publication: a Primer for the Debut Writer.”
Even with all that she does at the Odyssey, Grenier admits that being an independent business owner requires tenacity.
“[This business] has many, many rewards, but it is also stressful,” she said.
Opening a new door
Louis White, owner of East Longmeadow-based A. O. White – which he recently rebranded simply “White’s” – understands the currents and eddies of the retail business.
“You need to reinvent yourself every so often,” White said as he put the finishing touches on his new store, located in a quiet shopping area on Maple Street. “Times change, tastes change, everybody wants newness, including us.
“Retail is theater, really ” he added. “I think you have to mount a new production every so often.”
In this reinvention, White eschewed the tradition retail store for something that recreates the look and feel of the showrooms clothing buyers visit in New York and Los Angeles.
He spent several years – and snapped hundreds of photos of showrooms – researching the atmosphere he wanted for his selling space. He also talked to customers about what they wanted when shopping.
“‘Experience’ is the key word,” White said, explaining what motivates today’s retail customer. “You can buy clothes anywhere, though I like to think the clothing we buy is a little bit nicer, a little bit better. Really, it has to be an interactive experience when you shop.”
His concept – to create a store more like a laboratory or workshop, integrating the customer into the entire shopping experience.
“It’s interesting, when I have multiple customers in the store you’ll often have one customer showing something to another customer,” White said.
He’s even had clients stop by at 11 a.m. when the UPS deliveries arrive to see what’s new, try thing on, and suggest what to pair or where to place items in the shop.
“We love that,” White said.
But White doesn’t just depend on the customers walking through the door. He tweets put photos of new items to his contact list of clients, has plans for a revamped website, and still conducts a steady business through phone and email orders from far-flung clients.
“We have customers in most of the states in the country,” White said. “They look to us for some direction [with their wardrobe].”
Like Grenier at the Odyssey, he also understands the power of events to excite customers. In his niche, the trunk show – a limited-time opportunity for clients to come in and buy exclusive merchandise from a designer – is key.
“Whatever we can do to make it a complete experience beyond buying clothes,” White said.
In October he’s got a jewelry trunk show, a home furnishing event, and a men’s clothing trunk show on the calendar.
“Each season is a reinvention,” White said of the retail landscape. “I believe more than ever there is a void for us to fill.”
The home connection
Dorothy “Dot” Lortie has been helping individuals find the right home for years, but she said the growth of the Internet – and mobile apps like Zillow – has changed the way buyers – and sellers – approach the transaction.
“In the old days once a week we had to pick up a Multiple Listing book at the Board of Realtors and we would select properties and call buyers,” Lortie said. “Now, buyers and sellers can see in minutes what’s available.”
She said when a potential buyer approaches a local real estate agent today, the first thing he or she does is put the client on an email distribution list so “instantly they get updates” about potential properties. Easy access to information has also changed the client’s expectations.
“Buyers are much more sophisticated now than they ever were,” Lortie said. “They know exactly what they want. In the old days [buyers] wanted a fixer-upper … now they want it in move-in condition with an updated bath and an updated kitchen.”
But at the heart, the real estate business still remains a relationship business, Lortie noted.
“It never changes when you sit down face to face to face with a client to take care of their needs,” she said.
