Chapter Five: Culling, Events, and Receiving, Oh My!

After another exciting week at Changing Hands, I've gotten to experience even more than I did my first week. Here's what I did:

Day One

Today I got to experience what it's like when the store opens each morning. It started off with a staff meeting led by Heather, the store manager, in which she discussed specifics for deals the store was offering that day (there was a special sale since it was Leap Day) as well as the event they are having later tonight. After the meeting was finished, all of the employees pitched in to help move the carts of sale books outside.

For most of today, I got to work with Brandi again. She began by giving me an extensive tour of the children's section, which includes the teen section. She also explained what remainders are and how they work. Remainders are books that can be bought in bulk at a discounted price. Changing Hands then sells them at a sale price, but if they don't sell, the store is stuck with them because they can't be returned. 

However, for most of our time together, Brandi and I were culling new books. The process of culling is the same for new books as it is for used books except instead of being discounted like used books, the new books can be returned directly to the publisher. Also, since Brandi is the children's book buyer, she showed me how she looks through the list of books to be culled and sometimes takes books off of the list for reasons such as the author is local, there is an event coming up for a specific author, or she thinks that the book was just put in the wrong section (since some sections tend to overlap). Her extensive knowledge of the books and their authors definitely came in handy for this.

Next, I worked at the used book counter again, this time with Sarah (know affectionately by her coworkers as Buddha). As she worked on some trades that people brought in, she informed me of some of the ways that the process had been sped up over the years, including inputting all used books into the system so that employees don't have to physically leave the counter to check if they already have a copy of a particular book.

I ended off the day working with Daniel in gift receiving. His self-proclaimed job is "opening boxes", and that's what we did. He would check the P.O. (Purchase Order) from a particular company and then make sure that all of the items that were ordered were received and not broken in the boxes. Then, I helped put price labels on the items. Also, since all orders are received at the Tempe location, we set aside a designated amount of each product and packed them up to be transferred to the Phoenix location. I could see how repeating this process could get monotonous, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Day Two

Today started off with me working with Daniel again.The receiving department was a man short because someone called in sick and they were behind on ticketing merchandise. Thus, I was again put in charge of putting price labels on items, even working around a buggy label printer that Daniel tried to fix a few times to no avail. We did make significant progress, getting through a good stack of boxes. While we were working, Daniel told me about the significance of the gift department at Changing Hands. He explained that there is no way that indie bookstores like Changing Hands would be able to survive without the gift department because they contribute majorly to the their overall sales. This is especially the case around the holidays, but just in general, indie bookstores often offer merchandise that is extremely unique and might be hard to find at bigger stores.

Another major aspect of Changing Hands' identity is its events. I got to help Lauren out with one of these events, a signing for Lita Ford's new memoir, Living Like a Runaway. I not only helped set up, but I also got to work during the event itself handing people's books to Lita for her to sign. I even got to wear an official volunteer badge!

There were three other volunteers who were working the events, all of whom had experience working events at the store in the past, so they were able to talk to me about some of the past events they've gotten to experience, including ones by Ozzy Osbourne, Tyler Oakley, and Lindsey Stirling. Here's a little look at what the event itself looked like:

Since this was a ticketed event, customers received tickets with
a letter that corresponded to one of the signs in the line. This makes
the whole process of lining people up more organized.

Lita in the process of signing books

Overall it was a pretty awesome experience, and although I hadn't heard of her before the event, the receptive way in which the interacted with her fans made me wish that I had.

Day Three

Today I started work bright and early by working with Michelle in book receiving. As we were waiting for a shipment to arrive, Michelle explained to me that after working at Changing Hands for a few years, she has accumulated various different job titles. She used to be one of the store's gift buyers, and now she still is in charge of the lines she brought in, including incense, magnets, and magazines. Since she always has multiple projects on the back-burner for when she's not busy with receiving, her days never look the same and she's always learning something new. Michelle also mentioned that this is an aspect that is unique to smaller stores and would most likely not be seen at a larger bookstore.

Finally, a shipment arrived from Ingram, the company where Changing Hands gets its reorders and special orders. If a customer is asking for a book but it isn't currently in stock, Changing Hands can actually special order it. This adds a layer of customer service that is very much inherently "indie". After inputting the books into the system and putting price labels on them, two more shipments arrived, this time directly from the publishers. These shipments included advanced reader copies (or ARCs) for upcoming releases as well as books for upcoming store events which were set aside and marked with the date of the event.The only thing different about event books is that there is typically more of them ordered since sometimes around 300 or more people will come to events and there is no price label put on them since they are already designated for customers.

After finishing up working with Michelle, I worked behind the back info desk shelving books. I had a little difficulty with this at first because I wasn't sure of all the three-letter shelf designations. However, after starting with the ones that I did know, I was eventually able to shelve most of the books. I was even able to help a few customers find what they were looking for! Slowly but surely I am getting more accustomed to the layout of the store.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week really gave me a good look into the sense of community at Changing Hands as well as some things behind-the-scenes that help the store run smoothly. I'll report back with what I learn next week, but until then, happy reading!