The United Methodist Publishing House (www.umph.org) has announced that Michigan's only Cokesbury retail store, located in Plymouth, will close on Jan. 8, 2011. Cokesbury customers within a 40-mile radius of the store's location have been receiving notification of the store's closure.
"I was prepared for it, but not expecting it," said Joan Mueller, who has been the store manager since 1999. "We continue to be focused on the customers that have been coming in, maintaining a positive attitude, and celebrating the ministry that Cokesbury has provided in Michigan for the past 70 years."
The location is one of five Cokesbury (www.cokesbury.com) stores being closed by the Publishing House. The sites of the other stores closing include: Blackstone, Va., Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa., Philadelphia, Pa. and Syracuse, N.Y. Over the past year, 11 Cokesbury stores have been closed.
"Each of these stores that we are closing is losing money," said Ed Kowalski, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Publishing House. "When things were better — before 2009 — we were able to keep a lot of stores open that were borderline, but the stronger stores helped pay for the stores that were struggling. With all of the dramatic changes that have happened since 2009, we're not able to do that anymore. We've had to make the difficult decisions to close down the underperforming sites."
According to Kowalski, evaluations and closing of stores has been happening, but due to the current economic conditions, the closings have been more pronounced.
"We (UMPH/Cokesbury) are a self-funded agency, so we have to pay our own way," Kowalski said. "We have a process that we've gone through numerous times where we evaluate the performance of each store and see if there are options to us, such as changing the financial model, getting a rent break, changing the staffing model, evaluating the performance of store manager, etc. We try to save additional expenses before we close the site."
Mueller indicated that cost-reduction efforts had taken place at the Plymouth store, which opened in November 2003.
"In the case of the Plymouth store, declining purchasing levels by local congregations and rising costs associated with rent, inventory, and other aspects of the store were factors that led to a decision to discontinue operations in that location," wrote Jeff Barnes, executive director of store sales for UMPH, in an e-mail to customers. "These reasons are even more pressing in light of the ongoing economic environment that presents unprecedented challenges and necessitates unwelcome decisions. Although we must close the store, we remain committed to serving congregations and church leaders in the most cost-effective ways possible."
The staff at the Michigan store will be released as of Jan. 8, 2011. According to Kowalski, Cokesbury will be hiring a sales representative in Michigan, who will work with congregations regarding Christian education needs. The position of sales representative will be posted at a future date.
The Cokesbury presence at the Detroit and West Michigan annual conferences will also be staffed differently as a result of the changes. The 2011 annual conference sessions will feature a Cokesbury store, but the local sales representative as well as regional managers and staff from Nashville, Tenn., where the Publishing House is headquartered, will staff it.
All current stock at the store is discounted and deeper reductions on merchandise pricing will be announced as they occur.
The Michigan Cokesbury store is located at 15175 N. Sheldon Rd. in Plymouth.
For more information, including store hours, visit www.cokesbury.com.
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