Virginia Book Co. is planning to reopen its store in a new location at 310 Shafer St. It was previously in the basement of the taller building next door. (BizSense file)
A long-running Richmond business in the heart of VCU is starting a new chapter in a smaller space as it steps away from bookselling to focus on the sale of other university items.
Virginia Book Co., which has sold textbooks to VCU students for decades, is preparing to reopen in its new location at 310 Shafer St., next door to its previous location at 900 W. Franklin St.
With the new space comes a pivot away from textbook sales for the nearly 40-year-old business and greater emphasis on VCU apparel, university merchandise and school supplies as it searches for better margins.
“We’re transitioning out of textbook sales. They weren’t profitable anymore. We wanted to downsize our space,” said company president and store manager Sarah Vaughan.
“We looked at the whole market and the publishers are pushing people to online (books). Students don’t want to pay those prices and professors are giving them PDFs or going without. We saw it going down and decided it was time to get out.”
While the store is selling off its remaining textbook inventory, it plans to continue to offer workbooks for math courses at VCU. The store offered textbook rentals for the last time in the fall semester and no longer buys back textbooks. It is selling products online while it prepares to open the new brick-and-mortar retail store next month.
Vaughan’s dad, Ernest Mooney, started the company in 1986 and continues to own the independent shop, which isn’t VCU’s official bookstore. The university bookstore is the Barnes & Noble at 1111 W. Broad St.
Virginia Book Co., which is also underway on a rebrand to simply VBC, is leasing a building that VCU’s real estate foundation bought this year for $500,000. John Jay Schwartz of Have Site Will Travel handled the leasing.
Virginia Book Co.’s new space is smaller, at about 2,400 square feet, and has the advantage of a greater amount of natural light than was afforded by the more than 7,000-square-foot subterranean space the company departed in March.
“We’re not in a basement anymore. We have windows and light and it’s nice,” Vaughan said.
Virginia Book Co. is planning to reopen its store in a new location at 310 Shafer St. It was previously in the basement of the taller building next door. (BizSense file)
A long-running Richmond business in the heart of VCU is starting a new chapter in a smaller space as it steps away from bookselling to focus on the sale of other university items.
Virginia Book Co., which has sold textbooks to VCU students for decades, is preparing to reopen in its new location at 310 Shafer St., next door to its previous location at 900 W. Franklin St.
With the new space comes a pivot away from textbook sales for the nearly 40-year-old business and greater emphasis on VCU apparel, university merchandise and school supplies as it searches for better margins.
“We’re transitioning out of textbook sales. They weren’t profitable anymore. We wanted to downsize our space,” said company president and store manager Sarah Vaughan.
“We looked at the whole market and the publishers are pushing people to online (books). Students don’t want to pay those prices and professors are giving them PDFs or going without. We saw it going down and decided it was time to get out.”
While the store is selling off its remaining textbook inventory, it plans to continue to offer workbooks for math courses at VCU. The store offered textbook rentals for the last time in the fall semester and no longer buys back textbooks. It is selling products online while it prepares to open the new brick-and-mortar retail store next month.
Vaughan’s dad, Ernest Mooney, started the company in 1986 and continues to own the independent shop, which isn’t VCU’s official bookstore. The university bookstore is the Barnes & Noble at 1111 W. Broad St.
Virginia Book Co., which is also underway on a rebrand to simply VBC, is leasing a building that VCU’s real estate foundation bought this year for $500,000. John Jay Schwartz of Have Site Will Travel handled the leasing.
Virginia Book Co.’s new space is smaller, at about 2,400 square feet, and has the advantage of a greater amount of natural light than was afforded by the more than 7,000-square-foot subterranean space the company departed in March.
“We’re not in a basement anymore. We have windows and light and it’s nice,” Vaughan said.
Heartfelt Mazal Tov and congratulations to Virginia Book Co. on the move to very posh digs. I went to VCU for undergrad but just barely missed this company’s existance. They got underway in 1986 — I graduated in 1985.