SLO County bookstore turns to mail order and pickup as it waits out coronavirus closure
It’s no secret now is a difficult time for local businesses.
With the coronavirus outbreak forcing everyone to stay at home and away from traditional shopping or dining out establishments, a number of San Luis Obispo County businesses have been forced to pivot if they hope to survive.
This is the one in an ongoing series looking at how businesses are coping.
Do you have suggestions for businesses that are doing exceptional things during the outbreak? Ones that you think should be highlighted? Let us know! Send your suggestions to reporter Nick Wilson at nwilson@thetribunenews.com, and help The Tribune spotlight local businesses throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Nan’s Pre-owned Books
Location: 1328 W Grand Ave., Grover Beach
Website: www.nanspreownedbooks.com
When San Luis Obispo County issued its shelter-at-home order — essentially asking everyone to stay at home as much as possible and limit excursions — it made a list of businesses deemed “essential” to everyone’s daily lives.
Bookstores were not on that list.
“Unfortunately we are considered non-essential,” Nan’s Pre-owned Books co-owner Kassi Dee told The Tribune on March 27. “However, we consider that we are essential.”
So she and her grandmother, Nan Fowler, who founded the Grover Beach book store, decided to prove it.
Though they aren’t allowed to have customers in the shop, Dee and Fowler both are both filling phone and mail-in orders to keep the now stuck-at-home local population supplied with one of the few social-distance-approved escapes: books.
“We had to shut our doors, but we’re trying to help the community as much as we can,” Dee said. “We just really need it. We’re all in shelter-at-home, and the best thing to do is read. You can go anywhere.”
Around noon every day, the grandmother-granddaughter duo stop by the store to package up mysteries, fiction, romance novels and everything else local readers need to get through their county-mandated at-home time. (They also have to feed Kallie, a cat who lives in the shop and acts as its mascot.)
That’s the best time to try to reach them by phone for orders, Dee said. They’ll help give suggestions for books customers might like based on interests and genres, and if you have a particular book you are looking for, they can order it as well, Dee said. Customers can also reach them by email at nansbooks@aol.com.
Books can be either picked up curbside, delivered locally or mailed to your home, Dee added.
While they’re seeing much of their usual inventory requests — largely mystery novels — Dee noted that she’s seen a particular uptick in orders from students in recent days, as teachers adjust their curriculum for online learning.
Though they are keeping busy, the prospect of a long outbreak, and resulting decline in business, is daunting, Dee said.
“Our concerns are that every day business is lower than what it should be,” she said. “And that’s just how it is. Our plan for the future is to keep going and keep reaching out and keep finding ways to get books out to the community.”
According to Dee, who also runs a side business selling books on Amazon, the outbreak forced her and Fowler to even more quickly put into place some changes they were already planning to make as Fowler transfers full ownership to Dee.
“This made us go faster,” she said, of their launch of mail orders. “We’re getting our groove and doing that.”
In the meantime, they’re waiting out the epidemic in hopes of one day soon being able to welcome people back among their shelves stacked high with pre-owned books, Dee said.
“As soon as they say, ‘Hey guys, your doors can open,’ we will,” she said.
Her grandmother was equally confident about the store’s future.
“It’s gonna be over, and we are gonna make it,” Fowler said. “We are definitely gonna make it.”
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