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Show Entrepreneurs vie for niche in Mormon market By SARAH HANSEN Wouldn't it be great to be able to eat noiseless candy in church without the whole congregation knowing about it? Sorry, it doesn't look like it will be happening anytime soon. That innovative idea has been taken off the shelf to make room for larger, splashier wares such as books, tapes, videocassettes, jewelry, T-shirts, sculptures and assorted knick-knacks. knick-knacks. The competition is keen on the LDS market. Each year at the annual an-nual LDS Bookseller Association's convention about 130 exhibitors display their latest ideas. Twenty percent of those ideas don't survive the year. One of the small businesses that has survived is Merrill and Jean Gillette's "Back Issues" business. Their Bountiful basement is stuffed full of "thousands and thousands and thousands" of magazines, according ac-cording to Jean. They've been collecting col-lecting magazines for five to six years and have ones that date back as far as the early 1900s. They have Ensign, Friend, New Era, Improvement Im-provement Era and relief society, family home evening and priesthood periodicals. The business is not a big money maker. "Two or three times we've wondered if it's worth all the space, but we feel it's a way of recirculating recir-culating the messages the church wants us to have," said Jean. They started with three boxes of magazines, moved up to a bedroom, then into the family room. Most of their supply is donated by individuals; the rest is purchased at Deseret Industries. "A lot of people are glad to find a home for their magazines that have been stacked away for a long time," said Jean. Wards, branches, stakes, seminaries, sem-inaries, as well as both public and private libraries constitute the customers. On the other end of the spectrum are businesses such as Deseret Book and Seagull Book & Tape. Greg Kofford, president of Seagull Book & Tape, estimated that there are the mainstays of a $50 million-a-year retail market that, like the 7.5 million member Mormon Church, has more man doubled in the past 15 years. LDS -owned Deseret Book spans the publishing, wholesale and retail ends of the market. It publishes 50 to 60 new titles a year, prints and sells tens of thousands of sets of Mormon scripture, owns 25 stores in key locations, has book and audio clubs and sells by direct mail. Deseret Book's products account for 33 percent of sales at Seagull's eight discount stores. Not everyone is rejoicing with Deseret Book's success, however. One Mormon bookstore owner in Roy said, "We have to compete against our own church every day in the business. Everybody feels threatened." She contends that Deseret Book has access to the church membership member-ship records and that its ownership gives the company an unfair advantage. advan-tage. "They need to get Deseret out of the retail business," she said. "We have the right to survive." Gary Swapp, a Deseret vice president, said the company doesn't see church membership rolls and is sensitive to charges that it does. "I'm here to tell you that when you are the big fish, people aren't going to like you," he said. "All the decisions deci-sions we make are not going to coincide with their wishes, but we care. We don't have to be here, but we want to be here. ' Bill Daniels, an LDS bookseller in Sacramento, Calif., said the church's retention of Deseret Book's retail operation amounts to church policy. "I support church policy," he said. "But we're in a competitive business. We've got to find a way to survive in this climate." The Mormon merchandising climate is changing. Video and audio tape sales are accounting for 30 percent of Seagull's sales. "Saturday's Warrior," the LDS musical, made up 5 percent of the chain's total Christmas sales last year. The book market is also deviating from writings from the church general authorities to fiction. fic-tion. "Fifteen years ago they wouldn't even have considered fiction," fic-tion," said Paul Hastings of Deseret Book, "but now there must be 100 titles on the market." And so, the noiseless candy is nothing more than wishful thinking, unless Deseret Book manufactures it. |
