2022 Recap
It was a year with a lot of challenges, but less so than the previous two. We had a booming summer cut short by the Omicron outbreak in January 2022. The shop later closed for two weeks due to all the disruptions. That didn’t stop us however - we launched our new website and online sales took off. Our hope here was to be a bit more resilient and have other avenues of business.
One of the highlights of 2022 was having Kurt join us in June. He’s done a great job and we’ve been really excited to have him on board. Meanwhile, I went back to university and did other things outside the shop, which was a refreshing change in my life.
We started out the website this year with a real focus on comics, but when Kurt joined us, we pivoted more to New Zealand and collectible books. Supply chain disruptions meant there was a shortage of wholesale comic bags and boards and, in the end, it made more business sense to focus on the higher value used books.
It has been good to see the foreign tourists back this summer at the end of 2022. Domestic tourism has dropped a bit, but that was to be expected. We’ve ended the year on a high and now look forward to 2023. Our goal is to simply do better (nothing dramatic), be sustainable and recover from the Covid-19 turbulence. We want to focus on what we do best - that is quality used books. We want to thank everyone who has supported the shop. The book industry can be a challenging place at the best of times, but we value our customers and without you none of this would be possible.
All the best for 2023.