How to Stock a Small Independent Bookshop (and Keep It Profitable)

As an avid reader and millennial with a soft spot for 90s Rom Coms (hello You’ve Got Mail and Notting Hill), it’s always been my dream to run a bookshop. And I know I’m not alone, plenty of my friends have dreamt of that cosy life too: sipping tea, chatting to customers about books, and discovering the next great author.

But in reality? Running a bookshop is tough. Between Amazon, e-readers, and rising rents, it takes more than passion to run a profitable bookshop.

It’s not as simple as just filling shelves with your favourite books. If you do that, your cash could end up stuck in unsold stock, leaving you struggling to pay the bills. Feeling not so cosy after all.

I may never open my own bookshop, but after 20 years in retail helping businesses manage stock, improve cash flow, and grow profits, from high street brands to small independents, here’s exactly how I’d use those same strategies to help a bookshop stay dreamy and profitable.

Step 1: Understand Your Customer

Before you even think about filling your shelves, you need to know who you’re stocking for. If 80% of your range is Young Adult fiction but your core customer is millennial women, you’re going to miss the mark. Instead, you’d want a balanced mix of:

• Contemporary fiction and book club favourites
• Feminist titles and diverse non-fiction
• Wellbeing and slow living guides
• Cookbooks and creative living titles
• Indie and local authors
• A small selection of children’s books for their own kids or as gifts

Create a Customer Persona

If you’re just starting out, it’s worth creating an audience persona (a simple profile of your ideal customer). To do this, ask yourself:

• Transformations: What outcome are they looking for? (Relaxation, entertainment, inspiration)
• Lifestyle: How old are they, what do they wear, where do they shop, what’s their ideal holiday, what shows do they watch?
• Needs: Do they need a gift, a holiday read, or something for their book club?
• Wants: Do they want to treat themselves, try a new genre, or find their next favourite author?
• Struggles: Are they stuck on what to read next, overwhelmed by choice, or lost after finishing a big series?
• Barriers: What might stop them buying, price, availability, or not finding what they want? (And how can you solve that?)

Example: Millennial Women (28–42)

If your audience is millennial women, here’s what you might find:

• Time-poor → want quick inspiration and curated recommendations
• Experience-driven → value atmosphere, coffee, and events as much as the book clubs
• Values-led → seek diverse voices, women writers, indie publishers, and sustainability
• Aesthetic-conscious → love beautiful editions they can display at home

Books like Alice Benham’s The Digital Marketing Handbook and Daisy Morris’s Community is Your Currency are brilliant for helping you think about audience behaviour (and will help with your marketing too). I read them when thinking about the audience for my own product base business Skudaboo and they completely transformed how I think about my audience.

💡 Tool tip: Use AnswerThePublic to see the exact book-related questions people are searching for. This helps guide both your stock choices and your marketing.

If You’re More Established

Already trading for a year or more? Skip the guesswork and go straight to your customers:

• Run surveys and polls (in-store, email, or social media)
• Check your sales data and who's following you on social media or signed up to your email list
• Check Google Analytics for how they're finding you and what they're searching for

The key is combining data (what customers actually buy) with insight (what you learn from conversations and community) to drive what you buy.

Step 2: Check Your Shelf Space & Get Clever with Displays

Before you rush to fill every shelf, work out how much stock you really need. The goal is to keep your range as lean as possible, so it's efficient for you (less cash tied up, less time managing stock) and easier for your customers (less overwhelm, quicker decisions).

How to Calculate Shelf Density

Ask yourself: how many books do I need to make my shelves look healthy, without overstocking? The key to running a profitable bookshop is striking the balance between shelves that look lovely and full and stock levels that keep your cash flow healthy.

Also, make sure to sense check this number against your sales. For example, if you sell 20 books per week but have space for 1,000, it would take almost a year to clear your shelves if you fully stocked them That’s not good for your cash flow and you will end up struggling to pay your bills and invest in new stock.

A good guideline is to hold around 2-3 months worth of sales in stock. Therefore, if you're selling 20 books per week, you actually need to keep 160-240 books in stock.

However, bear in mind if you've got a fast lead time (the amount of time it takes your supplier to deliver after ordering), you could afford to hold even less stock. If lead times are long, you’ll need a bigger buffer.

This may also change, depending on seasonality. Christmas and other busy periods require more stock, while quieter months should be leaner.

Use Display Tricks to Stretch Your Stock

You don’t need thousands of titles to make your bookshop feel full. Clever merchandising does the hard work:

• Face books out instead of spine-only to give shelves more impact.
• Create themed tables like “Women Who Write Women,” “Books That Look Good on Your Coffee Table,” or “Sunday Reset Reads.”
• Add lifestyle items (stationery, candles, art prints, ceramics) to break up rows of spines and add extra revenue streams.
• Use space to display offers and book reviews or next read ideas (like' if you liked this book, then read this one'. Think A5 strut cards or cute blackboards.

If You’ve Got Too Much Shelf Space

If your sales don’t justify fully stocking every shelf or you simply can't afford to (especially if you're just starting out), you should:

• Refocus your energy on marketing to drive more sales.
• Or reduce your display space for now, swap some shelving units comfy chairs to create reading nooks. This not only fills the gap but also makes for a better customer experience.
• You can reintroduce extra shelving when your sales volume grows or during peak seasons like Christmas.

The aim is to create shelves that look full, inviting, and inspiring, without draining your cash or overwhelming customers.

Once you’ve worked out how much stock your shelves can hold, the next question is what that stock should be. That’s where curating your range comes in.

Step 3: Curate Your Range

Once you know how many books you need and what your audience wants, the next step is deciding how to weight your range by genre. This doesn’t need to be 100% precise, but having a target mix will guide your buying decisions and help you create a balanced and profitable range of books.

How to Work Out Your Genre Mix

If you already have sales data, use it to calculate your current mix:

Formula:

• If cookbooks generated 20 sales out of 100 total → 20 ÷ 100 = 0.2 → 20% of sales
• That tells you cookbooks should roughly make up 20% of your range.

💡 In Shopify, you can assign genre as a product type, then run a Total Sales by Product Report to get this breakdown automatically.

 If You’re Starting From Scratch

Without data, you’ll need to use research and guided guesswork. For example, if you’re targeting millennial women, a sensible range could look like this:

• 35% Contemporary fiction & book club picks
• 20% Feminist & diverse non-fiction
• 15% Wellbeing & slow living
• 10% Home & creative living
• 10% Beautiful editions & gift books
• 5% Local & indie authors
• 5% Children’s corner

Adjust for Real Life

Your percentages are a guide, not a rulebook. The aim is to create a balanced and intentional range where every book earns its spot, not a shelf full of 'just in case' stock or titles bought on a whim.

• You might want to dedicate a full fixture to contemporary fiction, so if it creeps up to 40% of your range, that’s fine.
• 5% of Children’s books may not need a whole bookcase; a smaller display table or corner fixture could be enough.
• Keep tweaking as you see what sells. Your stock should evolve with your customers.

Step 4: Order Your Stock Strategically

Ordering the right quantity is one of the trickiest parts of running a profitable bookshop. Buy too much, and your cash is tied up in unsold titles. Buy too little, and you risk missing out on sales. Here’s how I’d approach it:

How many best sellers vs new titles should make up your range

Deciding how much space (and cash) to give to bestsellers versus new or niche titles is a balancing act. You don't want all best sellers that shop feels generic, but too many new titles and you risk piles of unsold stock. 

A good starting point is:

• 70% reliable sellers → proven bestsellers, classics, book club staples, core non-fiction.
• 30% discovery titles → new releases, niche genres, indie authors.

You want to anchor your range with safe bets, books you know will sell. However, discovery titles give your shop personality and stop you competing solely on Amazon’s terms. They’re what makes you feel like a curated bookshop, not just a warehouse. Make sure though that you're checking your sales monthly and track and adjust.

Keep Bestsellers in Depth

• Hold 3–6 copies of proven bestsellers or titles you know will move.
• These are safe bets that deserve more shelf space.

Trial New & Buzzy Titles in Small Quantities

• Start with 1–2 copies of trending or untested titles.
• Rotate these monthly (or as often as you can) to keep your shop feeling fresh without overcommitting.
• Follow a “1 in, 1 out” policy by adding newness only if something else leaves your range. This stops your shelves from becoming overloaded.

Example in Actions

240 is my optimum number of books I need to keep in stock.

240 * 70% = 168 Books

168 Books / 4 (stocking on average 4 of each) = 42 Best selling title needed

240*30% = 72 Books

72 Books / 2 (stock on average 2 of each) = 36 New/discovery titles are needed

Creative Ways to Sell Slow Moving Book Titles

Not every book will fly off the shelf, but you don’t need to slash prices to shift them. Try:

• Moving them around as sometimes a new spot gives a book fresh life. Promote them on displays like “New In” or “Staff Picks” to boost visibility.
• Create a Blind Date with a Book section by wrapping books in paper with a teaser description and sell them at a slight discount.
• Book club bundles - recommend them to local reading groups.

Balance Old & New Stock

It’s tempting to constantly add exciting new titles (trust me, I know, my TBR pile is endless!), but make sure you’re selling through older stock first as overstock builds up fast and eats away at your cash.

Use Pre-Orders & Waitlists

• Offer pre-orders on upcoming releases to gauge interest before buying.
• Set up a waitlist so customers can sign up for popular books that are out of stock.
• Both approaches keep your cash safe and reduce the risk of over-ordering, since you’ll already know what sales to expect (and may even have them paid for in advance).

Step 5: Negotiate with Your Suppliers

Once you know what you want to stock, the next step is making sure your supplier terms work for you, not just the publisher or distributor.

Running a small independent bookshop means you can’t afford to have cash tied up in slow sellers, so getting the best possible deal with your suppliers is key to keeping your profits healthy and your shelves fresh.

Sale or Return - What It Means

Many book distributors and publishers offer Sale or Return (SOR) terms. This means you can return unsold books after a certain period for a refund or credit.

It reduces your financial risk. You can try new titles or categories without being stuck with leftover stock that doesn’t sell.

However, be sure to check:

• Return deadlines: e.g. 90 or 120 days from invoice.
• Condition requirements: books must be in perfect resale condition.
• Return fees: some suppliers charge handling or restocking fees.

Pro tip: Keep your stockroom tidy and returns labelled by date so you don’t miss any return windows.

Negotiate Better Prices

If you’re buying directly from smaller publishers, authors, or indie presses, don’t be afraid to ask about:

• Higher discounts for larger or repeat orders (e.g. 40–50% off RRP instead of 30–35%).
• Free shipping thresholds to reduce delivery costs.
• Extended payment terms (like 60 days instead of 30) to ease cash flow.

A few extra percentage points on margin can make a big difference when you’re selling lower-volume, higher-curation stock.

Build Strong Relationships

Suppliers want successful retailers. Build genuine relationships with reps, share what sells, what your customers are asking for, and what’s not working.

The more they see you as a proactive, data-driven partner, the more likely they are to offer:

• Exclusive deals or advance notice of upcoming releases.
• Support with events, author signings, or marketing materials.
• Flexibility on terms during quieter trading periods.

Step 6: Capitalise on Your In-Store Experience to Drive Sales

Stock is only part of the puzzle. To buy more books you need to sell more. To sell more books, you need more people coming through your doors (and onto your website). A strong in-store experience doesn’t just boost sales on the day, it also creates marketing opportunities that keep customers coming back and get you in front of new ones.

Boost Your Local SEO

Make the most of your physical location to help improve your search engine optimisation (SEO):

• Add your shop to local directories like Yell, Yelp, and Google Business Profile.
• Reach out to local publications and bloggers to feature your shop and ask them to link to your website.

Each link to your site is called a backlink, and these act as “votes of confidence” for search engines. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher your shop can rank on Google.

💡 Example: If a local blogger writes “I love shopping at [Your Bookshop]” and links to your site, that’s a backlink. Google sees it as proof that your shop is trusted and relevant and will show your website to more people.

Host Events to Attract Customers & Backlinks

Events are brilliant for driving foot traffic and boosting your online visibility. They’re newsworthy, so they’re more likely to get you featured in local press and community blogs. Try:

• Book clubs → Partner with local groups and offer bundles or discounts.
• Team up with a local business → cafés and coffee shops would be perfect for cross-promotion.
• Author Q&As or workshops → Great for publicity and word-of-mouth.
• Ticketed events on Eventbrite → Not only does this make sign-ups easy, but Eventbrite listings also give your website another backlink.

Don’t Forget Your Online Shop

Your website is just as important as your physical store. Many people who want to support indie bookshops can’t visit in person, but they’ll happily buy online if they can find you. It's a way to reach a whole new audience.

• Use SEO and backlinks to boost visibility on google and attract non-local customers.
• This will helps offset quieter periods in-store (like bad weather, roadworks, or seasonal dips).
• A thriving online shop protects your profits and keeps cash flow steady year-round.

Quick win: Local directories, bloggers, and publications are some of the easiest backlink opportunities for bookshops and they’re often free. Don’t miss out on these simple ways to boost visibility and bring in new customers across your physical and online shop.

Running a Bookshop That’s Both Cosy and Commercial

Running a bookshop can still be the dream, but it’s not about stacking your favourite reads on the shelves and hoping for the best.

Writing this blog has been so much fun as I feel like I've been able to pretend and imagine by bookshop. To make it work in today’s world of e-readers, audiobooks, and Amazon, you need to blend romance with retail strategy.

By:

• Understanding your audience so your range speaks directly to them,
• Managing your shelf density to keep cash flowing instead of locked up,
• Curating your range by category so every book has a reason to be there,
• Ordering stock strategically with depth for bestsellers and agility for new titles, and
• Capitalising on your in-store experience to create community, events, and SEO opportunities...

…you’re building a business that feels as magical as You’ve Got Mail but also has the numbers to back it up.

When every book has been chosen with purpose and every display is designed to inspire, your shop becomes more than just a place to buy books. It becomes a destination.

And that’s how you create a bookshop that’s cosy, community-driven, and commercially sustainable, a shop customers will love to visit again and again.

If you run a bookshop and could do with some help managing your stock, [#Get in touch here to book a stock review or chat about how we can make your numbers work harder for you.