“We need your help.” These are the words chosen by Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the very famous New York bookstore. Strand, to begin his letter to his customers and posted on his Twitter account October 23. Faced with the health crisis, the brand has seen its sales and cash figures drop drastically.
Nancy Bass Wyden explains that she had no other solution than to challenge the people of New York. Fortunately, the mobilization of the faithful of the sign was rapid. In just one weekend, 25,000 new orders were placed, allowing the bookstore to sell nearly $ 200,000 in merchandise.
Asked by le Washington Post, the owner confides: “I don’t think we’re just a bookstore. For me, we are a space of discovery and a community center. Getting help so quickly after asking for it is really heartwarming. ”
Surviving Covid-19
In her call for help, the manager told the story of the bookstore, created in 1927 by her grandfather Benjamin Bass, and then run by her father Fred Bass. Located today on Park Avenue, formerly known as Fourth Avenue, it is the last of the forty-eight bookstores that made up the historic Book Row.
“We survived almost everything for ninety-three years: the Great Depression, the two world wars, the opening of big bookstore chains, the creation of digital books and online giants., a écrit Nancy Bass Wyden. Because of the impact of Covid-19, we cannot survive the dramatic drop in foot traffic, the almost complete loss of tourism, and the total shutdown of events in the bookstore. ”
By sharing her distress on Twitter, the owner hopes to succeed in mobilizing her community and being able to keep the doors of her bookstore open until the future marketing of a vaccine. A strategy for the moment fruitful since in just one weekend, Strand made sales which brought him 170,550 dollars. [146.000 euros]. For comparison, the bookstore lost $ 316,000 [270.000 euros] in September. Among the clients mobilized, a woman from the Bronx bought 197 books.
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