Is It Christian Booksellers vs. Christian Publishers?

by Juli Cragg Hilliard, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 10/12/2005

Family Christian Stores, the largest Christian retail chain with more than 320 outlets in 39 states, has stopped reporting sales statistics to the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association—a move that annoys at least some publishers.

One, on condition of anonymity, told RBL, "I think they're building another wedge between us that didn't exist but that they thought existed." The publisher said it appears Family Christian believes that publishing houses are using data from the ECPA's STATS system (Sales Tracking Analysis Trends Summary) against Christian bookstores to build retail sales at Borders, Wal-Mart and the like. This could be accomplished by trying to deepen bread-and-butter backlist sales in other market channels, the source said, "but we don't need STATS to tell us that." CBA sales have been flat or waning, but in the general market religion book sales continue to gain.

The publisher speculated that CBA members may be retaliating for an April ECPA meeting in Tucson, Ariz., where ABA stores—who had asked that CBA stores be excluded—spoke about their business practices. But Christian publishers do more to help CBA retailers than other channels, he said. "If they stop and think about it, why would Christian publishers want to harm CBA booksellers? They're our closest allies."

Family Christian Stores CEO Dave Browne did not respond to requests for comment. But Mark Kuyper, president and CEO of ECPA, verified that Family Christian had quit reporting to STATS. Kuyper said Family mentioned no specific issues and indicated the possibility of resuming its reporting in the future. Kuyper told RBL, "Only Family Christian Stores has stopped sending in their sales numbers."

On Oct. 1, CBA--the association of Christian retail stores--launched its own data service, CROSS:SCAN (Christian Retail Official Sales Statistics), creating what it describes as "the first fully retailer-driven data collection and management initiative." In a press release, CBA president Bill Anderson stated that the service is "not intended to replace any other data service in the industry. … CBA will continue to encourage our member retailers to share data with industry partners." Publishers and other suppliers can contract with CROSS:SCAN for access to aggregate sales data for their own products.

Responding by e-mail to RBL's queries, Anderson wrote, "Christian retailers recognize that they have the responsibility and right to gather, manage, and disseminate their own data and its use to benefit the channel. They want this asset to be used in an intentional way to grow Christian retail, and that includes making sure suppliers have data that helps them to help Christian retail grow." CBA reports it has a contract in process with Family Christian to participate in CROSS:SCAN.

By leaving STATS, Family Christian only makes it harder to obtain information that is available elsewhere anyway, the anonymous publisher said. "These guys are making assumptions and jumping to conclusions that aren't necessarily true, and all they're doing is putting their heads in the sand a little deeper. If they want to continue to hide information when we're in the Information Age, they're going to become more and more irrelevant."