By Lloyd Mackey

IT IS as simple as “costs, like rent, wages, fuel and freight rising, and the price of product falling.”

That is the view of Mike Easton of Christian Book and Music, as he talks about the near-crisis conditions in Canada’s Christian bookstore industry.

Easton made his cost-and-price statement recently, when asked to comment about similar challenges expressed by the owner of the 23-store nationwide Blessings Christian Marketplace group. The Blessings chain, headquartered in Chilliwack, is closing several stores (see article on page one of the main section).

Christian Book and Music is a family-owned long-established group with three stores, in Victoria, Duncan and Nanaimo.

In the short term, the difficulties in the Canadian situation have to do with the rapid rise, last year, of the Canadian dollar against its American counterpart.

Easton points to the problem of having purchased American product at a relatively high price with lower value Canadian dollars, then having to sell it at a devalued price.

Some 95 percent of books, music products and other staples of Christian bookstore operations come from the United States, Easton pointed out.

True, he says, such Canadian authors as Mark Buchanan, Grace Fox and Bruxy Cavey (the first two from Vancouver Island) are catching on with Canadians.

And authors’ groups like The Word Guild and Inscribe are diligently tilling to “create east-west channels of interest for Canadian Christian authors,” as Word Guild founder N. J. Lindquist puts it.

But there is much work to be done to shift Canadian readers and users from their preponderant interest in American product.

Continue article >>

Even the above-named Canadian authors rely on getting acceptance in the American market so that north of the border activity can be piggybacked onto it.

Easton suggests, as well, that the increase in online sales of books and music has somewhat reduced the impact of the kind of place where readers and users can actually walk in, view the product and take it with them.

Easton suggests that anyone venturing into Christian bookselling should have a very clear understanding of the retail field.

It is also important, he says, that people in this business have a sense of what it takes to serve the Christian community, and relate to the churches in that community.

For example, he says, “music sales are down 10 to 20 per cent, right now, and gift items are up.” That means the retailer must be able to anticipate these shifts and stock to meet them.

Easton plans no changes to the number of Christian Book and Music stores – the three have been in place since his parents, Don and Judy, started them over two decades ago. Actually, the Victoria store began with the purchase of the assets of the old Christian Book Room, close to 50 years ago, from the late Frank and Nora Hamilton.

The Eastons and the Hamiltons had been friends and fellow-congregants at Oaklands Chapel and, before that, Oaklands Gospel Hall, so it was a passing-of-the-baton situation.

But Easton does allow that Christian retailers, no matter their situation, need to adapt to changing markets.

For now, he hopes for a stable dollar value, so that planning and thinking ahead is a little easier than it has been for the past year.

February 2008