Homecoming bookstore sales down

Despite an early start time and a crushing defeat for USC, the Homecoming game against Stanford on Saturday brought in more sales to the USC Pertusati bookstore than expected, though not as much as last year.

The bookstore made about $300,000 on Homecoming day, and approximately $550,000 over the entire weekend.

In previous years, the bookstore averaged about $1,000 in sales per minute during peak Homecoming hours; this year, sales topped out at $930 per minute.

Daniel Archer, director of the bookstore, said part of the reason for the decline in sales might have been the early kickoff. A 12:30 start, he said, meant customers didn’t have much time to purchase merchandise beforehand.

But more customers than usual purchased bookstore merchandise after the game, which Archer attributed to the unfortunate results.

“Sadly, it’s ironic … So many people left the game and our store was really busy,” Archer said. “It’s almost like retail therapy.”

Archer said once “disenchanted fans” left the Coliseum, they needed to do something else to distract themselves and found shopping at the bookstore a good option.

Archer said this accounted for the unusually strong sales during the second half of the day — that is, about $50,000 in sales from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Though sales were still down from last year’s Homecoming, Archer said sales were actually higher than anticipated, which he partially attributed to the recovering economy.

Overall, Archer was pleased with the results of bookstore sales, saying they were “very comparable to … last year,” and that it was a successful Homecoming weekend for the bookstore.