Dang!
‘End Times’ scenario?
IMHO, they started to go downhill when they changed from Family Bookstores to Family Christian Stores.
Less books, more trinkets.
No they screwed the pooch during the first bankruptcy filing.
No indication of any effort for an online presence during the last two years
I think we sometimes jump to conclusions about what this says about our society at large, that a store selling Christian things would not be able to survive any longer.
Ultimately what it says is that poor business management led to it’s downfall.
What products to carry? Who is your base market? Were efforts made to go online to expand the customer base. Was here adequate outreach/advertising?
Hopefully someone with an acute business acumen will come along and do a better job.
Not enough family Christians?
There is going to be a coming shakeup in retail real estate. I know a lady who has a great idea for a business, the kind that can't be done on-line. Yet when she runs the numbers, the retail rents doom her before she starts. But the landlords would rather let empty retail space fester for years as eyesores rather than lower their rent.
While it’s not always sound to base “what’s happening” in a market based on your own experience, I found that in the 90s and early 2000s, I’d visit these stores frequently. Much of the time I’d get music there.
With the rise of on-line music, there’s just no need.
I think also, overall, the quality and impact of Christian music-—which admittedly only made up some of the FCS business-—has declined dramatically. Stephen Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Mark Schulz, the Newsboys, DC Talk (now broken up), Avalon, Point of Grace have either disappeared or have put out pretty unimpressive music in the last 3-4 years. What was, in 2003-2006 a real golden age of Christian music has tailed off into a bunch of sound-alikes.
This also corresponds to the waning of the Word of Faith movement, which (I know many Freepers don’t like it but tough) sparked an incredible outburst of Bible study and purchase of religious materials. For example, in the early 1990s, I remember buying not only Vines, but a Hebrew-Greek-English Bible, and an annotated/expanded edition of the Bible.
I’ll also add that I think Christian fiction, which was quite different at first with Frank Peretti fell back into very predictable stuff. And, remember, the whole “Left Behind” series boomed during that time, sparking sales.
So all these things combined to cut the legs out from under FCS.
Christian bric-a-Brac
Why would someone buy a bankrupt company that continued to lose money? Particularly, in this hostile retail climate in which money is spent online as opposed to brick and mortar stores. So, my question to you is, would you buy them if you had to money to lose your shirt? I didn’t think so.
Internet competition, plus the local Lifeway has way more inventory and a much better selection than the local Family Christian Store ever did.
ping
the 2 locations I have been in some years back the store employees did not seem to care I was in their store, not saying hello, may I help or have a good day as I walked around looking at things and then leaving without purchasing.