The nice thing about the competition folding their tent is that we'll make more money. Current conditions aren't really sympathetic toward two used book stores in one small-ish town. Used books have always been a marginal business and the impact of the internet on retail operations has pushed many a small shop over the edge.
The down side is all the bottom-feeders & thieves I've chased off over the years are starting to drift back, because we're the only game in town.
No drunk homeless guy, I'm not going to buy that box of garbage you scavenged from the dumpster behind the library. Sorry tatooed urban camper, I'll pass on that stack of pristine, unread graphic novels fresh from the shelves at Barnes & Noble.
And I'm also having to wade through a lot of tremendously mediocre buys from displaced sellers. We've always had a vastly different buying culture than the competition- the owner made his bones at Moe's in the bay area, and I breathed in that eclectic philosophy like secondhand smoke from Moe's ever present cigar.
The kind of stuff our competition lived for is the kind of stuff we don't want.
And looking at boxes and boxes of boring books drains your life force. Every book you see, however nondescript, takes a tiny piece of your attention with it. If you look at enough mediocre books, you start feeling like Bilbo Baggins just before his birthday party- sort of thin and stretched.
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