Information for Churches

Let me begin by thanking you for your support and prayers, without both over the last 20 years we would not have survived this long. The time has come to stop trying to do things the way we have been doing them, and create a new business model for the Christian Book and Bible business in Washtenaw County. When Crossroads began, there were seven non-denominational Christian Bookstores in Washtenaw County; today Crossroads is the last one left. I do not see further downsizing as a way to provide a viable basis for Crossroads.

I have developed a new strategy, and began implementation in January 2010. It is modeled after the Sears catalog pick-up stores that were prevalent in rural areas in the 1950’s and 60’s. These stores were very small, stocked a few high-turnover items, and served as a pickup point for catalog purchases. Customers valued the presence of the local knowledgebase, and the availability of real people to help resolve problems and handle returns as necessary.

For Crossroads, the first part of this strategy involved creating a web-based catalog, which we launched in January. We currently have about 2000 items on the website, including church supplies, Bibles, T-shirts, movie DVD’s, dozens of teaching DVD’s (T. D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer) and we continue to add items daily. During checkout customers choose whether the order is to be picked up at the store or shipped.
The second part of this strategy involves a renewed connection to local churches in a couple of unique ways.

First, we will implement the 10% discount we give to churches by providing a coupon code each year which is entered in the shopping cart at time of checkout. We encourage you to give this code to everyone you are associated with, so they will get the same 10% discount on anything ordered through the website. This discount will increase over the calendar year as the total volume of orders using that code increases. When total purchases using that code pass the $5000 mark, the discount will remain at 20% for the remainder of the calendar year. A new discount code will be provided each January. The availability of this discount requires payment by customers at time of order, and by churches either at time of order or when picked up.
We also have created a special section of the shopping cart titled Churches (the first tab in the shopping cart.) We will create a tab for each church that would like one, you provide the information, and we will add links to products you would like to recommend to your church members. For example if pastor is doing a series on forgiveness, he might have a book that he recommends for reading during that time. As long as it is a book we can get through the distribution companies that supply us, we will add it to the website. Also, if the pastor would like to recommend specific Bibles or Bible version this can be accommodated. One church has even asked if we can post a list of the items needed for their church library. We will accommodate any requests that we can reasonably perform.

The third part of this strategy involves stocking a selection of Bibles, books, music, gifts, and church supplies that while not necessarily satisfying to either Crossroads or our customers -- still provides a Christian presence to the Washtenaw County community. A critical part of the music availability is the equipment and licenses we have had for almost 2 years to produce cd’s in the store while the customer waits. This Create-on-Demand system currently contains more than 11,000 accompaniment tracks, nearly 10,000 full length Christian music cd’s with most of the 100,000+ songs available for creating “custom mix” cd’s as well. These music cd’s are all full-bandwidth audio cd’s, not compressed mp3 versions. In addition there are more than 600 audio books available in either mp3 or cd audio formats. We will be adding a directory for this Create-on-Demand material to the website in the future.

To get started, simply register online in the online shopping area by entering an email address, and the church name and address information. If we have the church sales tax exempt information on file, we will update the registration to make orders through that id be tax exempt as well. If you would like us to set up the id for you, please call 734-662-6556, ask for Donna or Murray, and give us your church name and the email address you would like us to register. We will then email the discount code to you at that email address. You can begin using that code and giving it to your members/attendees as soon as you receive it.

Once again, Crossroads and our families thank you for your support and ask that you pray for us as we continue to seek God’s guidance for the best ways to return Crossroads to effectiveness, and to maximize its impact in Washtenaw County for the next 20 years.