Customers arrive carrying plastic bags full of books, usually dog-eared and a bit ragged.
The books they leave with look about the same. They just have different titles.
That’s the way inventory moves at Main Street Books in Monroe, where every book on the shelves is a trade-in, mostly from Amanda Kleinert’s “bread and butter” regular customers.
Kleinert has owned Main Street Books for four years. Her personal touches are everywhere: the yellow walls, the hand-tied genre signs hung high above the shelves, the tiny blond toddler dashing between the back of the store to the front desk.
“It’s something I’d wanted to do since high school,” she said.
But now she’s ready to move on. Kleinert is looking to sell the bookstore that lives in a rented storefront on Main Street, asking $50,000 for the company.
She’s listed the store on Craigslist.com several times, and in The Herald once. So far, she’s had a steady stream of nibbles but no serious buyers.
“I know it will just take the right person — or people — to come along and run the place,” she said.
For now, she’s being patient. She wants the store to have the same small-town vibe after the sale, and she wants it to retain her regular customers, many of whom are on fixed incomes.
Main Street Books isn’t the only small business sitting on a stalled market. Closed business-for-sale transactions in the United States were down 28 percent in 2009, according to data from the listing site BizBuySell.com.
The site’s Seattle section, which includes Snohomish County, also shows a decline. The median asking price for businesses slipped to $225,000 in 2009, down from $250,000 during the year before.
Tough credit markets have made it harder for buyers to close the deals, and data from the site shows that sales of large businesses took a bigger hit.
For Kleinert, the decision to get out of the book business is rooted in her personal life. Her 1-year-old son takes up more of her time. She wants to spend some time with her husband. And she runs a transcription business from home.
Still, she’s not in a hurry. She likes interacting with her regulars, who know her son and her black cat, Comma, by name.
“As long as I can see to read, I’ll be back,” one customer said last week while gathering up his purchases from the front desk.
“Oh, I can get large print, too,” Kleinert told him.
When the store does sell, she’ll miss those interactions. She’ll miss being involved in downtown revitalization efforts in the Monroe business community.
She’ll probably even miss all the books she ends up giving away, though she’d advise the new owners to keep a lid on the freebies.
“I really like books, and I really want people to have them,” she said. “I’m always giving discounts. And that’s bad for business.”
Despite her predisposition to discount, 2009 holiday sales were up 30 percent over the year before, Kleinert said.
She thinks part of that is a change in mindset, that used books aren’t taboo in a down economy.
And so for now she waits for the right buyer to come along — maybe next week, maybe in two years.
“If it doesn’t sell, I’m not going to close it up,” she said.
Read Amy Rolph’s small-business blog at www.heraldnet.com/TheStorefront. Contact her at 425-339-3029 or arolph@heraldnet.com.
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Main Street Books, 110 East Main St., Monroe; www.mainstbooksmonroe.com
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