Merchant Spotlight: Adoremus Books

Q: What is the story behind Adoremus Books?

Tom Heldridge: We began our online store to meet the increasing demand for homeschooling books and resources. We began in a small office space that served as our warehouse and hired two employees. We are family-owned and now have four full time employees in addition to ten part-time employees.

Q: What led you to open up an online store to complement your Omaha location?

Tom: Our storefront in Omaha resulted from the need to expand our warehouse space due to growth in product and the desire to continue to add to our product line. We also had more and more people drop in to shop. When we opened our religious bookstore, we found that the "walk-in" market wanted more gift items than books, so we added many religious gifts and hard-to-find, high quality traditional games and toys. This benefitted our online store and made our site more attractive to a larger market.

Q: What other religious products and resources do you offer aside from books?

Tom: Religious jewelry, medals, rosaries as well as statues/figurines, plaques, photo frames, greeting cards, religious art, photo albums, music boxes and music and movies, games and puzzles. We also carry toys and games that are not religious in nature but are high quality and relate to history science or literature that complement our homeschool subjects.

Q: How has the market for homeschooling, parenting and religious supplies changed in the last few years?

Tom: The homeschool market has grown tremendously over the last few years and we are grateful to be part of that growth. In the 15 years that my family has homeschooled, the number of materials available has exploded! When we began homeschooling, it was time-consuming to wade through many catalogs from several companies to find what we needed. We feel that the strength of our store is that we have such a large inventory and such a broad scope of resources that we are a good "one-stop shopping place" for the homeschool market. As far as religious reading, parenting resources and religious gifts, it seems that consumers have taken a "back-to-basics" approach to shopping. People are interested in learning their faith, growing in that faith and teaching or passing on the faith to others as well as expressing it in gifts that they give.

Q: Can you explain what subjects are integrated into the MODG Catholic curriculum?

Tom: MODG (Mother of Divine Grace) is a Catholic, Classical curriculum that provides a traditional liberal arts education, preschool-grade 12. Math, Religion, Language arts, foreign language, history and geography, economics and government, fine arts, science and health are subjects included in this curriculum. Syllabi are also available by grade (for grade school years) and by subject (for high school courses). Laura Berquist's book, Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum, inspired the creation of the syllabi and the long distance learning school Mother of Divine Grace.

Q: What has been the most rewarding feedback youve received through your online store?

Tom: Customers say that they are grateful for the product we provide, fast shipping and personal customer service. They are often overwhelmed when they go to our website or shop in our store and will say 'You have EVERYTHING!'

Q: How successful or widely used are your online catalog requests and newsletters?

Tom: Our product line has grown rapidly and it has not made sense to publish a full catalog at this time.

Q: What led you to create a Facebook page for your store? How do you think it benefits your business to integrate social media like Facebook into your website?

Tom: Facebook has been a way to get information on special store events and sales without having to send email.