Case Study: Helping a beloved indie bookstore turn data into dynamic strategy in just TWO HOURS
Client: Danielle Hulton
The Situation
Ada’s Technical Books is a beloved institution in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, part science bookstore, part maker supply shop, part community hub. Owner Danielle had a powerful intuition that the store could get even sharper: smarter buying, quicker turns, and more memorable merchandising.
She had a full year’s worth of POS data but needed help translating it into action. She wanted answers fast, creatively framed, and aligned with Ada’s deeply nerdy, deeply human soul.
The Collaboration
Scope: Analyze one year of book sales data to identify key trends, underperforming subcategories, actionable buying moves, and creative merchandising opportunities.
Timeframe: Two hours of real-time collaboration.
Process:
- Upload Ada’s full-year sales file
- Surface top sellers, emergent topics, surprising gaps
- Exclude Indie Bookseller Day surges to get clean organic trends
- Create detailed buy lists for Q3 2025
- Identify underperformers with specific cull or refresh strategies
- Recommend bestseller pairings with in-store merchandising tips
The Results
Within two hours, Danielle walked away with:
- A detailed strategic document outlining seasonal buying guidance, underperformer triage, and a merchandising roadmap.
- Targeted checklists for Nature, Maker, Mind Sciences, Graphic Novels, and Kids sections.
- 15 newly-researched Maker titles to refresh a key identity lane at Ada’s.
- Cross-merchandising ideas that would immediately boost average basket size.
- Clear shelf-facing rules based on data velocity (i.e., “one face-out per 10 units sold/year”).
- A full quarter’s worth of actionable moves ready to implement immediately.
Client Feedback
“I can’t believe how much ground we covered in two hours!
I had a few hunches about what was working and not working with our book curation, and it was powerful to see them confirmed and backed up with clear, specific data… plus, there were tons of insights that were totally news to me!
This session gave me a full quarter’s worth of buying, pruning, and refreshing ideas. It’s the kind of deep work thinking I always want to be doing for Ada’s but rarely have time to sit down and map out so clearly.
The two hours we spent wasn’t just about deep analysis… it was also strategic merchandising advice that I started applying while we were still talking! (I literally opened a browser tab to buy elastic bands for bundling bestsellers together, because the suggestion was so cute!)”
-Danielle Hulton, Owner of Ada’s Technical Books
Why It Worked
- Data clarity without overwhelm. We distilled 50,000+ lines of POS data into a few key trends, with zero spreadsheet paralysis.
- Creative merchandising thinking. Every buying recommendation was paired with a playful, visual, human-centered display idea.
- Actionable immediately. No vague suggestions; Danielle left with a ready-to-deploy plan.
- Respect for the store’s soul. The advice honored Ada’s nerdy, artful spirit, avoiding bland big-box retail tactics.