Just waiting for Amazon to get into the virtual book fair market. They already have the infrastructure in place to deliver. With the right marketing, they will take over the book fair industry, sell books way cheaper than the competitor and still profit without excessive overhead and overpaid managers.
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"Book fair issues will not sink Follett." Do you have the slightest idea on how many tens of millions of dollars have been spent on getting book fairs up and running? Fall of 19 was a disaster. The pandemic completely destroyed 2020. VP's, directors and managers have quit. Coincidence? I think not.
Any reports on how much the virtual fairs are producing versus the in-school book fairs? I can't imagine it's anywhere close to the same.
This is a perspective from a small regional book fair competitor.
Book fair issues will not sink Follett. Commercial real estate markets are still extremely tight across the country and their commercial real estate firm placed them in desirable locations. There will be losses in subletting the warehouses, but manageable. Publishers are facing massive issues from returnable customers and willing to negotiate. An agreement could be made with them and other vendors to mitigate a large portion of the inventory losses. For the most part Follett purchased appropriate products.
On the other hand, expect near complete losses on book fair carts and other book fair specific logistics equipment. I consider the carts the best in the business but I don't see any new companies willing to invest in a book fair model on the horizon. I don't see how Follett can continue as a physical onsite book fair company. Although the original idea way solid, the execution not the pandemic k–led it.
The Twin Elephants in the room are the college stores and library services. I have no clue how anyone would handle those issues with the upcoming massive government budget cuts.
As far as the employees keep you hope up. The vast majority of us are trying to get through this. Remember cash is king and friends are priceless.
If you're talking book fair warehouses, those are all leased warehouses as far as I know. They probably went into a contract of at least 10 years minimum. Most of these warehouses been up and running maybe a little over a year. This is just a prediction, but the only way that Follett is going to get out of the lease agreements is declare bankruptcy. That avoids any fines they have to pay for breaking the lease agreements early.
Is the plan still to close the warehouses and just do ebook fairs out of BT?
As far as I know, all supervisors, managers, directors and VP's (one's who haven't quit) are still on the payroll working 2-3 days a week. With all the school closures affecting schools across the country, most schools opted to cancel their book fairs for this fall. Focus is being put on e-Fairs, which I don't understand exactly how that works. Books sold from eFairs are shipped to closed schools????? Unless Follett is shipping directly to students homes????
With book fairs in a deficit crisis, where the money is coming from to keep this department afloat is a mystery.
So does book fairs still exist or not?
all the supervisors and still there. Who are they supervising?
The VP's are supervising the supervisors - therefore we NEED the VP's.
Business Management 101 - didn't you go to college?
"E-Fairs is desperately targeting schools in affluent districts"
So you mean to tell me that Follett has the gall to call closed schools due to the pandemic and promote e-fairs? Did I read that right? They're better off opening the warehouses and having one huge garage sale. Corporate greed watching their bottom line with no regard for the consumers.
E-Fairs is desperately targeting schools in affluent districts trying to get rid of the inventory collecting dust in the 5 warehouses. You'll start seeing buy 1 get 2 free soon. Overzealous vision, overspending, paying commissions on bookings and not account receivables, layoffs, huge deficit, top performers quitting, pandemic. Sad situation all the way around.
I totally agree!! I was laid off from Follett during the pandemic and my children are currently learning from home. I wish I could say money is tight, but we are struggling financially. How can a family struggling afford overpriced books and feed the family at the same time?
The school supplied us with a list of required books they "suggest" they read, I bought slightly used books on Amazon Prime saving 60%-75% off the retail price. I can't be the only laid-off parent watching my pennies.
Let’s not forget that Fall 2019 was disappointing because they rushed opening 5 new warehouses at the same time.
Any librarian with half a brain can sign up for Amazon Prime and get books at half of what E-Fairs is charging without paying for overhead expenses.
There was another round of permanent lay-offs this week. There were a handful of hopefuls that were promised to be recalled by the end of August. Nobody anticipated COVID going another school season. Between spring and fall, a few thousand Books Fairs were cancelled k–ling any anticipation of recovering expenditures from a dismal botched start-up and a very disappointing Fall 2019. Ironically with the staff now at 10% capacity, all the supervisors and still there. Who are they supervising? Any chances of Book Fairs recovering from a huge deficit since it's creation 2 years ago is just wishful thinking, IMO.
Since MLS took over in 2013 Follett has had impeccable timing in all we do. We start bookfairs just before the start of a pandemic. Priceless. We quadruple our rent by leasing the entire ivory tower. Now trying to jettison office space.
Lets not forget, we still have our online bookfair opportunities which are growing dramatically.
Okay but the OP just said that book fairs let everyone go. Making it seem as if everyone is gone. As far as anyone knows the book fairs team is there until at least the end of September. And some of the teams are already working on Fall 2021. That’s why an extra explanation was asked for. Everyone is very well aware of the state of schools in Fall. Just wanted clarification on the vague post about book fairs employees being let go now.
If grade schools are not open there will be no book fairs. Even when the schools open up they won't let them in. Until a vaccine for corona has been given out to everybody.
I agree. Please explain.
Please explain.