The R&P Review: Our Mission and a Renewed Focus

The business’s social media accounts have been relatively quiet for the past month or so. The majority of this inactivity was due to behind-the-scenes work geared towards transforming our website from a portal for general information about the store to a full-blown book blog. We are working with a few content providers who will contribute to updating the page several times weekly.

We are aiming to not only review books (fiction, non-fiction, children’s and local authors) but also provide industry news, links to interesting articles, and provide a resource for upcoming releases and other book information of interest to our bloggers. We hope you will visit (and comment) often! The best way to follow us is to subscribe on the top right of the screen – every time we write, it will get delivered right to your inbox. We will only write blogs of decent length – expect 2-4 emails a week with book reviews, news, and releases. You will not get bombarded with tedious e-mails – just content you will (hopefully!) like. We are attempting to minimize our dependency on social media as much as possible. We all know the positives and negatives of these models – we aim to utilize the far-reach of the platform while building our own website that will be able to reach our customers and not be entirely dependent on the success of other businesses.

TL:DR – Subscribe to our e-mail list to save money in our cafe.

Join our book member club (in-store) to save boatloads of money on books and cafe items.

For cafe shoppers – we will also have the ability to send coupons out to our email list. The points-based that we are currently using in-store was a trial model – our POS system refuses to unbundle the service and combines it with other services that we simply cannot utilize (or afford.) Therefore, we will be dropping the in-store “points for dollars” promotion (use your points by November 15th) and will be switching to a model that will save you more money (as long as you follow the blog and can receive e-mails!) We offer periodic coupons and deals that you will only know about if you subscribe to the blog. We haven’t worked out all the details yet, but rest assured the coupons will be more valuable than the $5-off-for-every-$100-you-spend promotion.

Lastly, we are offering SERIOUS savings on books in our store. We are going to begin offering a program on Friday, October 25th that will reward members who join with 15% off any book they purchase in-store or that they order from us. To join is just $15 for the full year – we are calling it our “15 for 15” program. Some books will not be included (textbooks, university press books, used/clearance books) but over 97% of our current inventory is available for discount!

Some math to consider – say you are going to buy some books for $45. If you join that day, you immediately save $6.75. To make the deal worth its weight, you would have 12 months to purchase another $55 worth of books – anything north of that number would be instant savings. Plus, if you are a member, we are going to offer enhanced coupons only available to YOU for use in our cafe. BOGOHO Meals, free drinks – it’s all on the table when we can control our own coupons.

We want to compete on price with Amazon and other larger outlets that sell books at discounts. When we first opened, I did not envision the volume we have experienced at the cafe or we would have offered this deal immediately. We love you guys, and we want to move as many books as we can. This is perfect for the holidays (think of your savings if you buys all books for loved ones) and wonderful for savings year-round!

Stay Tuned!