Congrats to Third Street Books in McMinnville, OR for a successful cash mob Thursday night. At the gathering, booksellers rang in 116 transactions in just over an hour, totaling about $3,400, owner Sylla McClellan tells us. “WOW!” she wrote in the store newsletter. “All I can say is WOW! . . . This was truly a community event.”
For more about the popular cash mob movement, which drives customers into local businesses, go here, and to check out the mob scene near you, go here.
The Third Street event was organized by local toy store owner Linda Hays, who put the word out to community members via e-newsletters and social media. Hays had told McClellan about the mob ahead of time because it took place at 6 pm (when the store usually closes), so she wanted to be sure the store was open and well staffed.
“One of the great parts about it is that afterwards, everyone headed across the street to Community Plate for dinner and drinks,” McClellan says. “Scott Cunningham (the owner) stayed open late just for this event and we all had a blast.”
The event came at a time when Third Street is working on a down-size, due to a decline in sales, which McClellan has attributed to a combination of the recession and a rise in e-book sales and readership—and to Amazon’s shadow with its proprietary Kindle e-reader. McClellan is shrinking the store to half its current size and leasing out the other half to another business. She says she and her husband plan on building a wall in the next week or so and that they’ve had a few nibbles on the space.