Chorleywood Bookshop
For over 50 years, Chiltern Bookshops have been serving their local community readers and schools. Despite facing stiff competition from larger chain stores and online retailers, Chiltern Bookshops has managed to thrive and maintain a loyal customer base. One of the key factors in the bookshop’s success has been its innovative approach to event planning and ticketing with MatterPay.
Over twenty years ago Sheryl Shurville joined the bookshop and set out to continue this legacy by building a community around inspiring stories and engaging events in the local area.
One of the key ways that the Bookshop had been able to draw in new customers and build its reputation was through its regular events, which included author readings, book clubs, and workshops.
A few years after joining, Sheryl and a team of local volunteers set up the Chorleywood Literary festival which started as a weekend of events and has steadily grown over the years. The Bookshop is now renowned for its intimate book signings and author talks including ever-popular events with award-winning authors, including Gordon Brown, David Mitchell, Ruby Wax, David Walliams and many more.
The challenge: competition and scaling events
Throughout her time at the helm of the bookshops, Sheryl has faced challenges from Amazon, Supermarkets and eBooks. Undeterred, she embraced these challenges and looked for new ways to succeed and cement the bookshop’s position in the community.
By diversifying and building an event program with world-renowned authors she was able to capture the attention of readers from near and far, driving more crucial book sales as well as providing excellent value to customers through unique events.
These events were always popular, but in the past, the Bookshop had struggled to manage ticketing and registration effectively.
To solve this problem, Sheryl worked with MatterPay. The system is easy to use, with customers able to purchase tickets and register for events directly from the Bookshop’s web page. All ticketing, payments and support were handled by MatterPay so the Bookshop were always able to provide a high-quality experience for attendees.
The perfect match
MatterPay engaged with Sheryl and together set up their first event, taking advantage of our free training for your first few events.
“MatterPay has always been really helpful and the service is so refined for our needs. It’s totally reduced the time we spend managing events.” – Sheryl Shurville
The bookshops have run an incredible 500 events on MatterPay, a phenomenal achievement for Chiltern Bookshops and a testament to the power of online event sales through MatterPay.
This proved to be a huge success for the Bookshop. It made it much easier for customers to sign up for events and reduced the workload for the Bookshop staff. The Bookshop was also able to track ticket sales and measure the success of each event, providing valuable insights into what types of events were most popular with their audience.
What’s next?
With such a strong track record, what’s next for Sheryl and the Bookshops?
We’re going to continue to provide excellent quality events, whilst keeping event admin costs low. Our goal is to reach more people and bring the joy of our events to everyone. We’re excited that MatterPay is supporting us with new functionality to improve our marketing.
MatterPay is invested in the success of all of our customers, with tools and support to be successful in events. We’re constantly growing our tools with event hosts just like you. Join the Bookshop and bring simplicity to your events management.