At the beginning of 2015 Borderlands was getting ready to close. San Francisco voters had passed an increase in the minimum wage that was going to end the financial viability of the store, probably by the middle of July that year. If not at that point, then the second increase scheduled for July of this year was certainly going to do the job. Although I and the rest of the staff strongly support minimum wage laws in general and we suspected that San Francisco's local increase would be generally positive for the city as a whole, we were trapped by the idiosyncrasy of the book business. Unlike most products, books have a price printed on them. That makes the usual business solution of increasing prices to cover higher expenses impossible for us. Rather than ride the business down into the grave, I and the rest of the staff decided it was better to close quickly, at the time of our choosing and at the top of our game.
Our customers were very much opposed to this and, out of their comments & suggestions and in consultation with the staff, we decided to try an experiment. We would ask that a minimum of 300 people sponsor the store for $100 each. If that many people were willing, it would offset the added expense of the wage increases that were scheduled to raise the wage to $15 per hour by the middle of the following year. Since that increased expense would be on-going, a basic assumption was that the sponsorship would need to recur each year.
2018 will be our fourth year operating as a sponsored business. Thus far, it has been a huge success. Not only have more than double the required number of people sponsored us for the past two years but, with the support of our sponsors, customers, and fellow professionals in our field, we were able to raise the funds to purchase a building on Haight Street to be our permanent location. 2018, our 20th year in business, is going to be a momentous one marked by our relocation to our new home. We will no longer be subject to the greatest threat to the survival of any small business -- a massive and unmanageable increase in rent.
As exciting as this year will be, it's not going to be easy. We are still under the wage pressure that caused us to start the sponsorship program in the first place. In time, our new building will ease some of that pressure, once the costs of moving and the finances stabilize, but for now the finances of the building are only self-supporting and they do not benefit the bookstore. In fact, the building finances are only self-supporting once the bookstore is paying the rent that currently goes to our landlord into the building's coffers instead. Added to that pressure, Alan will be doing a great deal of work to get the building is shape to house the store, which means that there will be even more work than usual for the rest of the bookstore and cafe staff.
If you have never been a sponsor or if you were in the past but stopped, this year will be a watershed moment for your support. If you'd like to sign up, you can do so on-line at https://borderlands-books.com/buysponsorship.html, or you can call 888 893-4008, email office@borderlands-books.com or come into the store in person. Though there are quite a few benefits to sponsorship (you'll find a full list here - http://borderlands-sponsors.blogspot.com/p/sponsor-benefits-and-privilidges.html) the greatest thing that your sponsorship will accomplish is helping us move forward and make our transition to our new space.
If you're interested in more details about how the sponsorship program came to be, you'll find the story here http://borderlands-sponsors.blogspot.com/p/why-sponsorships.html.
In closing we'd like to thank everyone who has been a sponsor in the past. Without you, we wouldn't be here.
