Pegasus Books has a lot of stuff.

In putting down new flooring, we had to remove all the product from the shelves and move them, willy nilly. It has really hammered home how much stuff we have.

As a result, there are all kinds of books and graphic novels whose covers I'm seeing for the first time in years. A lot of them are very intriguing. They've all been hidden, spine out, undiscovered for years, even decades.

It has me questioning everything I'm doing.

On one hand, a good rule of thumb is--the more product I carry, the more I sell.

On the other hand, equally valid, is the idea that the more product that is displayed face out, the more I sell.

A couple of years ago, we removed used books completely and replaced them with graphic novel racks where I could show the covers. Sales went up.

So the idea would be to carry just as much product, but show more of it face out--and that isn't possible. In fact, the basic concept of the store is that if a product can be stacked, vertically or horizontally, I'll order it. If it's an odd size, or must be displayed face-out, avoid it. (Except for games and toys, which can be displayed on the walls six feet up or higher.

I don't know that there is an answer, except to continually try to be creative. (A bigger store, of course, but downtown Bend is the gold standard right now. My location has become almost a "legacy" at this point. I don't want to lose that.)

One thing I can do is more systematically change which titles are shown outward on a regular basis. I always have that intent, but in reality, this process is usually pretty random.

I could perhaps winnow out that stuff that hasn't sold for a long time, but that's the stuff which has a strong profit margin--and the whole point of this post is to figure out how to display the "stuff that hasn't sold" in a way that it does sell.

Oh, well. In putting everything back, I'll have a chance to rethink which product needs to be displayed and which can be simply stacked. I'll try to change it out a little--but not too much, because the store was doing very well BC. (Before Coronavirus.)

Don't want to mess with a winning formula too much.