columns
by Timothy Sunderland (TopShelf Columnist)
Twitter @timthewriter | [email protected]
San Francisco used to be the catch-all for
everything edgy on the west coast. No
longer so. Now the City by the Bay is the
home to pricey hipster restaurants, the
financial center of Silicon Valley, and real
estate values so high that residents get
nosebleeds when they pay the mortgage.
All that’s edgy has migrated 600 miles
north to Portland, Oregon. Any visit to
Bridgetown includes a visit to Voodoo
Doughnuts, home of the maple iced doughnut
with two strips of bacon on it (and racier
delicacies whose shapes and colors we can’t
mention on these pages, but you get the point).
Once you get through the 45-minute line to
get your sin food, you can eat them within view
of the sign on the side of Music Millennium
that reads “Keep Portland Weird.”
From Voodoo, it is an eight-minute walk to
the corner of Burnside and 10 th Avenue. Make
sure your last will and testament is updated,
however, because once you enter Powell’s City
of Books, with its almost one million volumes,
your loved ones may never see you again.
Since its beginnings in 1971, Powell’s has
grown to occupy the four buildings on its
corner, filling an entire city block. Two of
the buildings are one-story, another is three
stories, and a fourth rises four floors. There
are seven color-coded rooms, 75,000 square
feet of retail space, and 35 different sections.
Powell’s has four locations and more than
500 employees in the Portland area, but the
Burnside store is by far the largest. In 2014,
this location was voted one of the Ten
Coolest Book Stores in the World by CNN.
Powell’s started in 1971 in the most
improbable of ways—as a second-hand
www.TopShelfMagazine.net
POWELL’S BOOKSTORE
was followed by son Michael, and then
granddaughter Emily. The Powell family
stepped aside in 2013 to focus on long-
term planning, and Sontz was brought on.
She has a good handle on the retail book
business, including the specter of e-books.
“Screens are good for lots of things,”
she said, ‘but they are not the death knell
of the printed book. A lot of people, at
the end of their work day, do not want to
look at a screen anymore. They want the
tactile experience of a printed book.”
But some customers will sacrifice
community for the sake of convenience,
and sometimes you have to go where
your competition is. Twenty-five
percent of Powell’s revenue comes from
online sales. But even then, the online
experience at Powell’s focuses on books.
“We are passionate about books,” said
Sontz. “That’s what we sell. I don’t know what
TOPSHELF AMERICA:
book store. A year earlier, founder Walter
Powell loaned his son $3,000 to buy a used-
book store in Chicago. After spending a
summer working with his son, who paid
back the loan in six months, Walter saw the
potential and returned to Portland. Within a
decade, Powell’s was offering new books
side-by-side with the used ones.
What has turned out to be true,” says
Powell’s CEO Miriam Sontz, “is that used
books spur the sale of new books. New books
spur the sales of used books. The two do not
seem to have a negative impact on each other.”
So how do they do it. How, did Powell’s
expand to legendary status, with a weird
mix of new and old, and how have they
stayed relevant in what has been a
tumultuous time in the retail book industry,
in the face of internet retailers, and in the
wake of megastores like Barnes & Noble
and Borders (remember those guys?)?
“Online retailers
have not figured out a
logarithm that creates
the experience of a real
store,” says Sontz.
“That’s what we sell.”
Next to the classics
at Powell’s, you’ll find a
selection of manga and
graphic novels. And
guess what? Readers
like to touch and handle
these genres before they
decide on a purchase.
Powell’s capitalizes
on the realization that not every reader knows
what their next book will be. Powell’s allows
them to kick the tires. Rather than going to
the large retailers, where the book table gets
smaller every day, today’s reader wants a
wider selection.
Powell’s reportedly takes in 3,000 used
books a day, guaranteeing an inventory that’s
as diverse as the city it calls home. Taking in
all four stores and the mail-order business,
Powell’s reportedly controls an inventory of 4
million volumes. Powell’s also seeks out the
smaller, independent presses, knowing that
readers want more than what the New York
publishers are dictating we should read.
Programming is part of the mix, too. As many
as 500 authors each year give readings, answer
questions, and spend time with readers.
Before Sontz became the CEO, the Powell
family was into its third generation of family
members running the store. Founder Walter
COLUMNS
Amazon is passionate about. They sell things,
but not necessarily books.”
Powell’s also realizes that with books
comes community. People want to talk
about what they are reading and get
referrals from other people. That’s why
4,000 square feet of the first floor at Powell’s
is set aside as a coffee shop called World Cup.
It’s part of what keeps folks in Powell’s for
hours, and the longer they are in the store,
the more they are likely to buy.
So, the next time you are in Portland,
take any one of eleven bridges across the
Willamette River (that’s why they call it
Bridgetown). Stop and get your Voodoo
doughnuts, then take the quick stroll to
Powell’s. We hope you have three or four
hours set aside. It will take at least that long,
and you’ll wish you had more time.
And … don’t forget to update the last
will and testament before you walk in.
TOPShelf magazine
AUGUST2017 13