Bookstore in trouble again

For the third year in a row, Concordia’s Co-op Bookstore is facing severe financial difficulties as it struggles to make ends meet.
According to the Co-op’s board of governors, the group will be experimenting with a number of strategies in order to return to profitability. Among these are soliciting increased donation of both books and cash, strict enforcing of pricing policies, implementing a modern inventory-tracking system, and hiring a fulltime accountant to oversee the Co-op’s finances.
For Co-op board-member Matthew Forget, however, the group’s best hope of solving its economic difficulties remains its decision to seek a fee levy from students in the next school year to fund ongoing operations.
In the meantime, the bookstore has been forced to come to terms with government and creditors. Apart from being obliged to re-negotiate ongoing debts with the CSU, the bookstore has also been forced to meet a stringent schedule of payments to the government, resulting from what Larissa Dutil, a board member, described as a “misunderstanding on what we actually had to pay in tax.”
According to Dutil, the Co-op’s tax problems arose because of insufficient care in choosing ad training accountants.
Still, she says,”we’re working hard to get these books back in shape, now. We’re [in the process of] having last year’s finances audited, and we want to get this government situation behind us.”
Despite this optimism, however, the bookstore’s finances do not seem so rosy. Although the prospective budget for the year predicts that the Co-op will run a $13,885 deficit, this projection is based on an assumed increase in revenues of $15,000 since the 2007/2008 fiscal year. However, the bookstore’s total sales have increased year-over-year by only approximately $2,400, whereas the official sales have actually decreased by approximately $2,200. Based on these numbers, the bookstore’s fiscal year deficit may end up substantially larger than currently predicted.
According to Dutil, who also serves as the bookstore’s administrator, the Co-op has no real assets apart from its books, and thus would be obliged to take on debt in order to pay for any deficit taken on this year.
Over the course of last year, the bookstore has already been the recipient of a $10,000 interest-free loan that was provided by an anonymous donor. In the last two years, the bookstore has also received at least two bridging loans from the CSU, totalling well above $10,000.
For all the group’s difficulties, however, its members remain positive about the group’s future. Over the next year, the bookstore will be looking to bridge the digital divide, moving its ordering system online and making partnerships with web-based booksellers’ networks.
“We’ve already started setting up an eBay account,” said Forget. “We want to get more of our content up online quickly. It’s a great opportunity.”