However, I do buy lots of gift books at the local Catholic shop. I’ve got to do a better job of patronizing them more often. If only they were closer!

I forgot something in my coffee/prices comment
A lot of the things mentioned in this post are the kinds of things that need to be included in materials available to your store’s customers - even walk and wanders who dont buy anything.

Signs, inserts in their bags, email and printed newsletters, brief tidbits during interaction with customers in the store, etc.

One of the best ways to realign a customer’s expectations is to educate them just like you do here on the blog. The brick and mortar clientele deserves no less and in fact, the overhead of the store practically demands it.

Mark

2 things come to mind: prices and coffee

I would note that the coffee thing is an expectation of a book store these days. Regardless of how much negativity you feel toward the large retailers, the customer’s expectations are set when they arrive because theyve been to a BN, Borders or similar. While you can postulate at length about the double mocha vs the 8 bucks (or 3, whatever), if you were selling the coffee, you might have that extra revenue instead of the box store.
Kristin made a great point that jives with the rest of your post regarding finding a Catholic source for coffee and mugs. Ditto for tea, chocolate, pastries and all the other mishmash that you find at a bookstore.

Regarding higher prices vs BN/Amazon and the independent retailers inability to compete on price - that’s where your value proposition has to raise expectations to a point where BN/Borders or a big online store cant or (more importantly) WONT compete (even if that online store is yours).

I think you missed one huge advantage to shopping at a Catholic store: Knowledge of the faith. In order to make the advantage a bullet item for this post, it might be listed as something along the lines of “I dont care that the clerks in the big box store don’t Saint Jude from Judas Priest.”

When I go to a specialty retailer, I *expect* the staff to be experts and enthusiasts about the goods and services that the store sells. I’m going there and paying a higher price for something because I know (expect) that they are more experienced or smarter than me (or at least, better trained) on the subject matter and can help me with the deep, dark insider secrets of a particular item.