News broke yesterday that LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention has decided to close all 170 of its bricks and mortar stores. Christianity Today has the story. The news comes after the publishers retail division posted another year of losses:
LifeWay hadn’t had sales exceed its operating expenses in more than a decade, Baptist Press reported, and the margin between the two grew from $2.3 million in 2010 to $35.5 million in 2017.
It’s big news, mostly because LifeWay seemed (at least to casual observers) as though it was the one chain that might possibly weather the disruptive changes in book retail.
Jeff Gissing 