Declining, but not false, profits

Even as the industry stagnates, shoppers still flock to Frederick’s Christian bookstores from a wide area

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Tom Fedor⁄The Gazette Dorothy Socks has worked for Christian Light Bookstores since she was in high school and now manages the store on the Golden Mile in Frederick.

With four retailers, the city has more Christian bookstores and shops than a community of roughly 60,000 would be expected to support, said Roger L. Williams, executive director of the Christian Light Bookstores of Nappanee, Ind., which has a location on Frederick’s Golden Mile.

Williams said his nonprofit chain of 14 stores, including ones in Frederick and Hagerstown, has a sales margin of less than 1 percent.

‘‘We’re not making a profit,” he said. Any net earnings are used to ‘‘further the ministry.”

Christian Light isn’t alone in the industry. ‘‘The operating statement survey in 2004 of all Christian bookstores shows a net before taxes of 0.4 percent,” Williams said.

‘‘What I think you’ll find throughout the industry is that the number of stores has declined over the last five years or so,” he said.

The $4 billion industry may have peaked in 1997, when sales increased 12 percent, Williams said, citing data from the Christian Booksellers Association.

‘‘Our net profit before 1997 was 4.2 percent. 1997 was a big turning year for the industry,” he said. ‘‘Now we’re at 0.4 percent — one tenth of what we were doing.”

One factor contributing to lower margins is his stores’ emphasis on service and selection, he said. Williams said a friend who ran a retail music operation talked about trying to get wages below 9 percent of revenues, while ‘‘ours are around 16 percent. We could keep it lower if we offered lower wages, or didn’t have someone on the floor, but we stress service.”

Frederick Christian bookstores and gift shops: 54 Roses, Christian Light Bookstore, Shepherd’s Table, Tan De Vita Spanish Christian Bookstore

Christian Light faces another problem, Williams said. As a nonprofit, it is not eligible for small business loans and other government programs, event though the store still pays sales tax, he said.

Among the players in Frederick is a relative newcomer, Pamela Taylor, who purchased Shepherd’s Table in 2004 from the original owner, who founded the Prospect Boulevard store in 1988 and was retiring.

‘‘I live in the area and love the store,” said Taylor, who employs six full- and part-timers. ‘‘I thought it was, it is, a good business opportunity.” Taylor declined to discuss the terms of the sale, but called it an ‘‘investment in the community and area. I didn’t want to see the business die.”

Taylor’s shop, like other Christian booksellers, caters to Protestants more than Roman Catholics. A Market Street store, 54 Roses, targets Catholics.

‘‘We carry a very small [number of Catholic products]. A couple of Catholic bibles” and little else, she said. Roughly 70 percent of her sales are to individuals, Taylor said, with churches accounting for the rest.

She said she pulls her customers from ‘‘all over Frederick, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and even churches from upper Montgomery County.”

At the other end of the spectrum from Taylor is Dorothy Socks, who has worked for Christian Light since she was a high-schooler in the 1960s and is now manager of the Frederick store, which opened on Market Street and moved from another location to the Golden Mile in 1988.

Like Shepherd’s Table, Christian Light carries a limited selection of items for Catholics.

‘‘Most bookstores are typically evangelical Protestant — than there are Catholic bookstores,” Taylor said. ‘‘There’s a line there, but it’s not as distinct as it was 10 to 15 years ago. We get requests from Catholics for statues of various saints, but that’s not a product we’re going to carry” because of tight shelf space.

The busy seasons are the spring, with Easter, Mother’s Day and vacation Bible schools gearing up, and Christmas, both Socks and Taylor said.

‘‘Like other retail, January is a slow month,” Taylor said, ‘‘but Easter is just around the corner with people buying Bibles and gifts.”

One of the problems Christian bookstores face is the perception that they sell only self-help books and Bibles, Taylor said. Music is a big seller at most Christian bookstores and gift shops.

‘‘We have all types of books here — a lot of fiction and children’s books,” she said. ‘‘We have [Bibles and self-help books], but we also have Christian games, fiction and other gift items.”