Christianity Today is reporting that the largest chain of Christian retail stores has purchased itself from its previous private equity owners. Family Christian Stores has had a rough patch. There are still nearly 300 stores (for comparison Lifeway has 163 stores).
In 1993 Zondervan publisher and the stores separated ownership. Family Christian Stores grew primarily through acquiring other christian bookstores to its current size. Since 1999 they have been primarily owned by a private equity firm. Over the past couple years they have been increasingly focused on using their physical presence to leverage their non-profit arm (The James Fund).
The new ownership structure will donate all profits to the James Fund which primarily focuses on serving widows and orphans (from James 1:27).
It still seems questionable whether a large scale Christian bookstore can be profitable in the long term when many other books stores are closing. Also as part of the announcement FCS killed their ebook initiative (which should never have launched.)
I cannot remember the last time I purchase something in a Christian bookstore (other than the one at my church.) Do you use Christian book stores?
Not very often. I did go to Mardel with my mom the other day so she could buy a Bible for her Sunday School teacher. But I pretty much get all my books from this site or at the library. I haven’t purchased a paper book for quite a while. I do sometimes miss them, though. And I do miss strolling through a bookstore. But I also love just clicking “buy now” and having a new book show up on my Kindle.
No kidding, how do they expect to be profitable? They should invest in having a major presence on Amazon and iTunes rather than focus on brick and mortar at this point.
So they seem to be marketing this as a non-profit focused business. But if there isn’t any profits then nothing goes to the charity.