We have a clear goal for the bookstore: to increase revenues to the point where we can cover our costs with staffing for seven days a week. Roughly that means doubling revenue from when we took it over. One thing that makes it hard to know how we are going is the volatility in the numbers. They jump around rather a lot.

Turns out that if you don't accept Paywave, people are more likely to pay with EFTPOS. Hooray for lower fees.

This is the technology we now use in our marvellous bookstore.

When we started we knew that the store lost a small amount of money most months, and did best in the summer. We knew that sales had been pretty consistent in the past couple of years, but were about three times higher ten years ago. We also knew how much the store spent and on what. And we had a good idea of what books were in stock. So how are we tracking, four months in?

We put up new signs this week and will make this website visible shortly (and this blog soon after that: hello world!). So why The Open Book?