Kepler's Books More Than Two Years Later

In the summer of 2005, when Kepler's Books closed its doors for what owner Clark Kepler believed was the last time, customers of the Menlo Park, California, institution rallied and refused to let it die. In the two and half years since, Kepler's has formalized community support via a membership program, restructured organizationally, integrated a number of on- and offsite events, and undergone an interior redesign. Sales have turned around, and all of this progress has left Kepler feeling "guardedly optimistic."

Maintaining the bookstore's growth since reopening has been "both exhilarating and exhausting," he said. "It's great to be exhilarated. I've been exhausted a long time."

Sales have grown modestly but steadily for the past two years. This past holiday season saw a five percent boost over the previous year's holiday sales, and the store had a two percent gain in 2007 overall. Prior to reopening, the Silicon Valley bookstore had experienced consecutive double-digit declines since the dotcom bubble burst in 2002.

When Kepler's closed in August 2005, most of its customers had no idea the store was in trouble, and they were desperate to bring it back. "One of the things that was really profound for me when we reopened was how many people came forward to say that losing Kepler's was like losing a family member," Kepler said. "The day we reopened was perhaps the biggest sales day in our history. And our inventory was pretty lousy then."

Kepler's has formalized its relationship with those customers. They have a membership program with a two-dozen "Patrons," or investor/shareholders, and a five-member Board of Directors. As CEO, Kepler chairs the Board, whose members include Daniel Mendez, who spearheaded the initial campaign to organize a group of investors to save the store.

Kepler outlined the membership program, which he told BTW was based on the National Public Radio model. The store has membership levels from $20 for students, to $2,500 for platinum members. Most memberships average about $50, and family memberships can range from $100 to $200. "Membership has continued to be critical to our goals for each year that we've been open," said Kepler. "It's allowed us to be active in a variety of programs."

New programs include more than a dozen book fairs and presentations of frontlist titles to teachers and librarians. Kepler said the store has also relaunched its book club program. "We had been passive about book clubs, but now we actively market the clubs to encourage people to register," he explained. "We also create a display with shelf-talkers for the clubs. About half of our display sales come from book club members and the other half are from browsers. Not only can each club find its book club books easily, it's probably the most popular section in the store for the community."

Another change that boosted sales was a store redesign and a stronger emphasis on sidelines. "We now can better display both books and merchandise and both are growing in sales. We've seen certain backlist decline, and we've brought in other titles. So what we've actually seen is a certain amount of inventory decline while our turns have increased. Our objective is to bring in more non-book items so we can increase the margins. We're learning to be better retailers."

Another example of Kepler's revitalization is its recent nomination for the 2008 Lucile Micheels Pannell Awards, recognizing retail bookstores that excel at inspiring the interest of young people in books and reading.

Looking back, Kepler, the founder of the fledgling independent business alliance Hometown Peninsula, said that he hadn't realized the level of community support for the bookstore -- both from customers and from fellow merchants -- until it was almost too late. "I was struck by how many small businesses had the same issues we had -- limited resources and a David-and-Goliath attitude," he said. "But there's a lot of power if you get together and stay focused on the issue of raising awareness of shopping locally. As Betsy Burton [of The King's English Bookshop in Utah] has said, the most important thing is to make your customers and community aware of the value of independent businesses. Everything else is secondary to that awareness." --Karen Schechner