Bookmans is expanding! We've added a new warehouse to our family, and are working toward opening our own online store. Thanks to Inside Tucson Business for covering the story, which you can read on their site, or the text is copied below.

By Joe Pangburn, Inside Tucson Business

Published on Friday, August 6th, 2010

Bookmans Entertainment Exchange is planning to open another store this fall but its customers will never see the inside of it. It’s going to be a store devoted to fulfilling requests from online shoppers.

“We got into the Internet business about three years ago when we listed some things on Amazon.com and it just started growing from there,” said Jim Lubinski, chief financial officer for Bookmans. “We got to the point where our distribution facility is bursting at the seams and our lease was coming up in August.”

Bookmans paid more than $4.3 million for a 140,000-square-foot building at 5120 S. Julian Drive that had been a VF Factory Outlet store up until about a year ago. The seller was Beaudry RV, which will lease back 8,000 square feet for offices. Another 50,000 square-feet of the building will be available to rent for special events.

Without revealing specific numbers, Lubinksi said online sales are about equal to what one of the company’s larger stores produces.

“Amazon.com gives us great exposure, but we really feel the need to build the Bookmans brand,” he said. “We will start out doing a combination of continuing some listings on Amazon while we grow our store.”

The online store is based on the same model as the company’s other retail outlets, selling items purchased from customers. A customized software aides buyers in making the decision of whether the book should be kept in-house or sent to the distribution center for sale online.

“It takes a number of factors into consideration when making that one decision,” Lubinski said. “They have some very highly sophisticated tools to help them make that decision as to whether something will sell well online.”

Lubinski said the push for the online store will require increased purchases from customers at the physical locations. Customers will be able to use their trade-in credit online, which Lubinski said was uncommon.

He hopes to have the online store up and running before Christmas.

Bookmans has six retail stores in Arizona; three in Tucson and one each in Phoenix, Mesa and Flagstaff.

Contact reporter Joe Pangburn at jpangburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259.

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