AFTER almost five years owning Mildura Collins Booksellers, Donata Carrazza is looking to sell the store.
The decision coincides with several other events for Ms Carrazza such as her stepping down as director of the Mildura Writers Festival.
Ms Carrazza originally bought the store in October 2020 and she said her five year contact with the Collins franchise was always the plan.
“It’s just the right time now that it’s the end of my contract with the franchise,” she said.
“It’s also coincided with changes in my life like becoming a grandmother and being curious about what else is out there for me in the world.”
In 2020, while working and studying in Melbourne, Ms Carrazza made the decision to come back to her home of Mildura to avoid the pandemic and formed the plan to buy the store in October from long time owner, John Bond.
The store with Mr Bond went through several changes and Ms Carrazza said she remembers it fondly.
“I loved going into browse and shop. When John had it, it was just a go-to,” she said.
“It was still called Book City for a while, then it was Libro Books, then it became Collins Booksellers.
“I’ve got so many books still on my shelves with John’s stickers or labels on the back of the book from when he had the store.”
In the past five years, Ms Carrazza worked to diversify the store’s catalogue to include books Mildura residents might not expect.
The collection was integral to making the store Ms Carrazza’s own and she said she wouldn’t change a thing.
“Even if they weren’t selling, I knew that they were there. It was like insurance for me, being surrounded by all of these wonderful ideas,” she said.
“The reality of any retail business depends where it is, and the reality of a bookshop in Mildura is that it’s catering to the market that’s here.
“There’s the thing you aspire to have in your store, but there’s also the thing that is the reality that keeps the store functioning as a business. I don’t think I would have done it another way.”
The challenges of running a bookstore have dramatically changed in the past five years due to shifts in the literary scene and customer habits when buying literature.
In spite of the challenges, Ms Carrazza said the store’s staple location at Langtree Mall has been essential to maintaining the community mindedness.
“The mall is ideal for the sense of community, but there are so many competing factors like the discount department stores and the online world,” she said.
“A thriving, flourishing, thinking community needs to have a bookshop. They feed a need in you that you don’t even know.”
The store has formerly been on sale since June and Ms Carrazza said the ideal buyer should be someone who wants to serve the Mildura community.
“The person is going to love this community and is going to want to serve its customers in the best way they can,” she said.
“They will bring their own interests to the business so that it becomes their own.
“I think they will be a person who will have a long-term view. They need to have that five-year vision at minimum, that’s part of the deal of being in the franchise anyway.
“There are all sorts of things that can impact business economics. That’s the nature of all business and any retailer will tell you that. So the person needs to have the stamina.”
