On Monday, Nov. 4, students of Oswego State gave back to the community by bringing an influx of customers to The River’s End Bookstore in downtown Oswego for a local cash mob. The event was held from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and over 100 patrons were in attendance.
A cash mob is a group of people who assemble at a local business during a brief period of time to make purchases and show support. The event was sponsored by the creative writing program’s literary citizenship class, which is taught by professor Donna Steiner, the faculty advisor to the cash mob. Steiner spoke to why it was so important for the school’s creative writing students to give back to River’s End in such a large-scale way.
“The bookstore has supported us in many ways over the years,” Steiner said. “So, we just want to get as many people into the store as we can to spend a couple of dollars and just show them that we appreciate them.”
The cash mob has been going on for about five years, according to Steiner, and, apart from giving back to local businesses, it gives her students a platform to develop skills that will help them deal with book sellers post-graduation. For example, this semester the students in her literary citizenship class have learned how to market upcoming novels with promotional plans, writer events, book giveaways and professional writer’s resumes. The cash mob furthered these teachings by allowing for direct contact between writers and sellers.
“Writers and booksellers go hand-in-hand, you can’t have one without the other,” Steiner said. “These are our future writers who are going to have to know how to speak to booksellers and bookstores and set up their events and have readings. And without the writers, the bookstores have nothing to sell.”
It was not just the students in the class who gained something from this experience. For the students attending the event, they were able to get exposed to the downtown area of Oswego, as opposed to simply being stuck on campus.
Creative writing major Lucas Fernandez spoke to how important it is for students to show their support for local businesses such as River’s End.
“Even though we have very different lives, all of us form one big community within Oswego, and it becomes very symbiotic,” Fernandez said. “It’s important because we make up such a large part of the population, we do our part to keep the community thriving.”
Fernandez also spoke to the benefits of cash mobs for getting students to step outside their comfort zone. By attending an event with a group of friends, students are more willing to go explore parts of the city that they never would have thought of before.
“This familiarizes business owners with the students and the students with everywhere else,” Fernandez said.
With the store already half full before 5:00 p.m. and packed with customers by 5:30 p.m., it is safe to say that this year’s cash mob was a success for River’s End Bookstore. However, according to store manager Emil Christmann, apart from the obvious monetary benefits, the store also gets introduced to a whole new group of students each time the cash mob comes around.
“It’s great. It gets the students into the store. Sometimes it is their first time here,” Christmann said. “It’s nice to encourage that earlier on. To get freshman, sophomores, juniors in here before they’re seniors and they’re on their way out and this is the first time that they’ve ventured in here.”
Christmann echoed statements from the students as to the power of a cash mob as opposed to other forms of marketing, saying that it generates more excitement and that other businesses would benefit from it as well. He also went on to discuss how the store manages to survive despite a growing market for Kindles and e-readers, emphasizing how important it is for small communities to have local bookstores.
“We hear this all the time from our customers, that they love to have a physical book in their hand,” Christmann said. “But it is important to note that we don’t shy away from that sort of thing.”
River’s End Bookstore uses Hummingbird e-Books as well as partnering with Libro.fm, an audiobook service that allows readers to buy audiobooks directly from their local bookstore. Christmann knows it is a tough fight for hard copy books to stay relevant in today’s digital age, however, the store has been open for business for 21 years and counting, with events like the cash mob doing nothing but help the store continue to thrive.
“This isn’t the first time that we participated in it,” Christmann said. “We certainly appreciate every time it comes around.”
Photo by Brandon Fallat | The Oswegonian
