How are bookstores weathering the pandemic?
At Bards Alley in Vienna, VA, we’re offering curbside pickup for phone and online orders. We are also promoting Libro.fm and Bookshop. We have a very active social-media coordinator, Leah Grover, who has been keeping up virtual interaction with customers with conversation starters about favorite books and getting people to share photos of books and pets!
We have also partnered with our neighboring business Bikes@Vienna to offer bicycle delivery in the Vienna area. We are calling it Book Pedalers!
Window shopping has even more significance now since people can’t come in and browse, so owner Jen Morrow and book buyer Amy Lane have spruced up the window display, which we also share on social media. We are sending out a weekly newsletter to keep our customers informed about changing hours, etc., too.
Additionally, we have hosted some Facebook Live Storytimes for the kiddos stuck at home, and plan to do more. And we had friend of the store David Baldacci record a video for us and send signed bookplates for our #OneViennaReads promotion with his book One Good Deed, which has been very popular. (We plan on hosting a virtual book club with the community on April 27th.)
We’re also trying to get a shopping-cart feature up and running as soon as possible to make the online-shopping process easier for our customers!
Bards Alley, 110 Church Street, NW, Vienna, VA (571-459-2653, [email protected]). Current hours are Mon.-Fri. 11AM-3PM.
[Editor’s note: We invite indie bookstores to contact us at [email protected] and tell us how you’ve adjusted to the coronavirus crisis. We’ll share your stories.]
