11/02/2025
The other day, as I left for work feeling weighed down by a mountain of debt and stress, I thought to myself, "I don't know how much longer I can do this." And then a couple hours later, I saw the news that our very close bookstore neighbor is closing at the end of the month. And another post from a long-time business out near our Charlotte location about how they are on the brink of closure.
Did you know that 50% of small businesses close their doors within the first five years? We passed that milestone a couple of weeks ago with a sense of pride, but with more uncertainty about our future than we've ever had.
The world is a scary, uncertain place for so many of us in so many ways. Boo-hooing about the state of a bookstore may sound trivial, but this place is quite literally my life, so please bear with me. (Or scroll on by.)
Almost two years ago now, my decision to be transparent about our situation saved our business. As I revisited those words tonight, I was shocked by how true they still are. All this time, I've felt like we were making progress, doing big things, getting somewhere. But it's painfully obvious to me now that we've been barely treading water, on the brink of drowning this whole time.
So I'm going to share those same words with you again today (with just a few minor adjustments), at the end of the slowest Saturday we've ever seen. At the end of a month that is down over $7K compared to the same month last year. At a time when our YTD sales are down nearly $30K compared to last year.
Friends, I present to you the ghost of holiday shopping seasons past:
When a business announces that they're closing, the community often rushes in during the final days and weeks to show their support. But by then, it's too late.
That is not our story...yet. I won't lie to you, though- 2025 has been a rough year for us, and for lots of small businesses in the area. In far too many cases, all it takes is a bad month or two to ruin a small business, and 2025 has had more than its fair share of not-so-great months.
Amid market uncertainty, mass layoffs, debilitating tariffs, and supply chain issues, many of us have seen a significant drop in sales. We've also seen our social media engagement continue to plummet, now in favor of the AI slop being shoved down our throats. Across all of Deadtime's social media channels combined, we have over 60K followers. Lately, we're lucky if our posts even reach a few hundred of you. (We're hilarious and have cute shop cats- the content is not the problem.🤣) Losing these free marketing avenues that we've worked so hard to cultivate over the years couldn't possibly come at a worse time. It often feels like we're screaming into the void. Someone asked me today how business is going, and I told him too busy and not busy enough at the same time. I work almost 24/7 (most small business owners do), but the numbers certainly don't reflect that.
As 2025 draws to a close following a somewhat disappointing spooky season, I find myself reflecting on the past year and worrying about the year to come. Figuring out what works and what doesn't, what I may be able to do differently to salvage this dream of mine- and I'm left with this: I can't promise you that we'll still be here by the end of 2026. But I can promise you that we're going to fight like hell to stay.
Don't wait for us (or any of your favorite local haunts) to announce our closure before jumping in to help. If there are businesses in your community that you want to see stick around, make sure they have the support they need to do just that.
Your help doesn't have to be monetary. Engage with social media posts. Likes, comments, shares- those are what make the algorithm happy, which gets posts in front of more eyeballs. Respond "interested" to events, even if you know you can't make it. Your "interest" shows up in your friends' newsfeeds, which is often more effective than sharing the event itself. Underneath a page's "about" info, on the righthand side, you'll see three dots. If you click on those, you should see an option to "invite friends." INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS! If a shop deals in used goods, donate those boxes that are collecting dust in your attic. For us, that means books. We would LOVE your gently used true crime, horror, murder mystery, and spooky kids books.
If I learned anything the first time we had this conversation, it's not to commit to something I'm not prepared for. So yes, just like last time, another HUGE clearance sale is coming. But it will start next week, not tomorrow.
In a going out of business sale, prices are slashed to move as much product as possible before the doors close forever. In our (not yet) going out of business sale (again), we're slashing prices to move as much product as possible so that we have the space in our shop (and our bank account) to try some new things to make you fall in love with us all over again.
We've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for far too long. Now Peter's up and R-U-N-N-O-F-T, and Paul's drowning in the Swamp of Sadness. We love our weird little shop, we love the space it inhabits, and we love the community we're a part of. We want to stick around forever. Or at least 'til we are ghosts. Only this time, we've gotta find a way to do it x2.
