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Avenue Victor Hugo
Is Moving!
After twenty seven years, during which Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop
was repeatedly voted the best or among the best used bookstores in the
Boston area, owner Vincent McCaffrey has announced his plan to close
the Newbury Street store with a pre-Christmas half-price sale and move
the remaining stock to a new location.
The decision follows three years of declining revenue and
increasing costs. Income at the store has been cut by more than a
third due to the extraordinary growth of Internet book sales. This has
come at a time when the City of Boston has repeatedly increased taxes
while real estate values have driven rents to all time highs.
When Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop opened in 1975, the last few
blocks of Newbury Street had few retail businesses. The first three
years were lean as buyers were slowly drawn to the location by poetry
readings and literary stunts. In 1980 noted author Harlan Ellison sat
in the bookshop window for three days and wrote three stories as
passersby gawked. During the 1980's small boutique stores
flourished, creating the "Newbury Street" image as a hot retail
district.
Beginning Thursday, October 24th, most of the stock of the store
will be sold at half price. About 10% of the volumes are cataloged
for Internet sale and because of this increased cost will be set aside
at a lesser discount. This means over 130,000 books will be offered
for sale at 50% off.
Used bookstores do not enjoy the turnover common to new bookstores,
because of the need to carry a much larger selection of stock. An
average used title requires as much as two years to sell compared to
two or three months for a new book. The Avenue Victor Hugo stock of
150,000 books and 250,000 back issue magazines requires a significant
amount of space.
Changes in
Buying Patterns?
The largest component of Avenue Victor Hugo's customer base has
been students. With the common issuance of laptop computers and the
steady increase in the online book market, student habits have
changed. This has coupled with the extraordinary rise in textbook
prices at a time when production costs have fallen, primarily due to a
reduction of the number of publishers competing in a very large
market.
Students, once on-line and looking for bargains in the used text
book world, order most or all of their books at one time. When
shipping and handling is figured into the equation, they often pay a
little more, but save the time and work necessary to go scouting in
actual bookshops.
This summer's tourist season has been another
disappointment. Visitors from small towns lacking their own used
bookshops no longer have to wait until they "visit the big city,"
to search for titles; simply going on the Internet instead.
Suburban book lovers have been driven from more frequent Newbury
Street visits by voracious parking enforcement with high penalties and
the lack of parking in the first place. The decline in the quality of
public transportation and parking fines have often been cited by
disgruntled customers.
Book collectors will happily spend time "surfing the net" in
search of the best deal. Mom and pop with their Mac on a table top in
Tennessee can now compete, selling the books they picked up at their
local library sale at prices which reflect the lack of overhead costs
to bargain conscious buyers. The number of used booksellers
nationally, which remained for years at about 10,000, has now risen to
the hundreds of thousands on the Internet.
Specialty book dealers, once a primary source of income for Avenue
Victor Hugo, because it followed a practice of keeping its prices as
low as possible, are now saving the hundreds of hours and
transportation costs once spent searching for difficult titles in the
aisles of far flung shops.
Reading habits have dramatically changed through the years, with
buyers all seeking the same titles of books which have received mass
promotion through venues like Oprah's Book Club. Chain stores can
easily out-discount smaller stores in competition over fewer
titles.
National chains, incorporated in low tax states and using the
advantage of large purchases and the power of big advertising budgets
have had a negative impact on many small businesses, including
bookshops. Avenue Victor Hugo had already reduced its new book
purchases from twenty percent of its total mix to zero in the face of
increasing competition from chains like Barnes and Noble and
Borders. Barnes and Noble and Amazon have now both aggressively
entered the on-line competition for used book business.
We love our
customers, but it's time to move
The rent at the bookshop has traditionally been kept below average
Newbury Street prices by their sympathetic landlord, but recent
increases have been unavoidable in the present market. City
assessments have increased taxes on Newbury Street commercial property
each year since 1996.
Despite the increase in taxes, services in the area have decreased
in recent years. Graffiti, street garbage, and aggressive pan-handling
have made the street far less attractive to visitors. Petty crime
has grown as police enforcement has been directed to high profile
problems.
Another important loss has been the already significant change in
neighboring businesses. Besides the onslaught of retail chains,
Newbury street has become a hot market for shoe stores and hair
salons. This is a narrow market which is seldom interested in
browsing dusty bookshelves.
The bookshop's two cats over the years, Tygg Feet and Blue Bart,
have usually had more fans than the overworked staff. Blue will miss
his sunny window spot where his adoring public currently makes
homage.
The store weathered two previous recessions and Mr. McCaffrey had
hoped to hang on a bit longer. "Being rather near sighted has kept
me close to my business through the years and helped me ignore the
changes." But it is clearly time to go, he says.
The bookshop is currently looking for a new home as close to the
present address as possible. The avenuevictorhugobooks.com web site
will remain active through the move in January. The 50% off
pre-Christmas sale will hopefully reduce stock to a manageable size
before the move.
During the move, customers may go to the Avenue Victor Hugo web
site (where 15,000 books are cataloged) for additional information
and new developments at: avenuevictorhugobooks.com
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