A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Bible Retailing
ElShaddai Edwards at He Is Sufficient notes some recent changes in the layout of the Bible section of his local Christian bookstore.
It sounds like (we can’t be sure) the store has started using Zondervan’s Total Bible Solution 2.0 materials, an industry-wide merchandising system introduced in February 2008. Bookstores using TBS can choose to arrange their Bible sections by translation or by category, with the former being most common, as the trade journal CBA Retailers+Resources reported (login required) in its March 2008 issue:
“Tyndale recommends allocating shelf space based on how customers shop. For most customers the first point of decision is translation, and based on the data we’ve seen, it’s probably the primary factor in choosing a Bible. The second factor would be felt need,” [Mary Chapman of Tyndale] says. “Merchandising Bibles together that meet the same felt need will decrease walk-out rate. For example, the best-selling modern-language translations such as the NIV and NLT should be merchandised together. Additionally, make sure you give each Bible translation shelf space based on your in-store sales as well as market share across the industry.”
Categories
The adoption of new Bible-specific BISAC category codes in January 2008 by publishers and retailers allowed the unified merchandising. All Bibles fall into one of eight categories: Children, Devotional, General, New Testament & Portions, Reference, Study, Text, and Youth & Teen.
The previous category system, Christian Product Codes, had two levels of organization. The top-level categories were: Audio, Children’s, Devotional, New Testament, Parallel & Interlinear, Reference, Scripture Portion, Specialty & Misc, Study, Text, Topical, and Youth & Teen. The sub-categories were either a translation and additional qualifier, or one of the following: Bride’s, Catholic, Compact, Family, Gift & Award, Large & Giant Print, Men’s, One Year, Pastor & Preaching, Personal Size, Pew, Thinline & Slimline, Wide Margin, and Women’s.
The new BISAC system reduces the number of translation/category combinations to around 170 from around 640. The ESV’s BISAC numbers are BIB003000 through BIB003070—not that you’ll ever need to know them.
Training
Have you ever wondered what training booksellers receive about the Bibles they sell? Zondervan and Thomas Nelson (plus, to a lesser extent, other publishers) both produce Bible-training kits for bookstores.
As of this writing, Zondervan’s Bible Training is available online for anyone to browse. It consists of nine lessons, with a few just added recently. The ESV gets mentioned in Lesson 3, “Help Your Customers Choose a Translation.” (We could only get the site to work in Internet Explorer.)
If you’re interested in a particular translation or edition, we encourage you to do research before heading to your local Christian bookstore. Visit publishers’ websites for the official story. Sites like Bible Researcher or even Wikipedia can provide you helpful third-party information. Talk with your pastor or a Christian friend for advice. Then visit booksellers for their perspective. It’s often helpful to hold a Bible in your hands before you buy it, and Christian bookstores almost certainly have a wider selection of Bibles than other stores.
