Once an old wise man said, “If you aren’t doing what you can’t do, it’s okay. But, if you are not doing what you can do, then you are a disaster.
This viral incident of Pertsifled bookshop in Hampshire reminds me of the saying by the old man.
Here is what actually happened.
The Petersfield Bookshop in Hampshire had made no sales on January 14 because of heavy rainfall. They even offered a 25% discount on all books to attract customers, but no one made the purchase. The owner went on to tweet about the incident and claimed that it was the first time something like this had happened.
The Petersfield Bookshop tweeted:
…Tumbleweed…
Not a single book sold today…
£0.00…
We think think this maybe the first time ever…
We know its miserable out but if you'd like to help us out please find our Abebooks offering below, all at 25% off at the moment…. pic.twitter.com/Cn5uhYWw88
— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 14, 2020
Famous author Neil Gaiman, who also happens to be an old customer of the shop, took notice of the tweet, and in order to help, he retweeted the post and his millions of followers decided to help the bookshop.
In one day, they earned £1,000 (Rs 92,000 approx) and 1,000 followers!
The store thanked the customers tweeting:
What a night! We have been completely overwhelmed in a good way.
We have 1,100 new followers.
We have loads of online book orders.
We have over 300 messages, many asking after books. We will answer all as soon as we can, please bear with us
Thank you all so much!
— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 15, 2020
The Bookshop also thanked Neil Gaiman for his kind gesture in another tweet.
Can we just say thank you @neilhimself this is not the day we thought we were going to have but it's been the best. People are kind and that's something to never forget
This is a small portion of the orders we received overnight and today as a result of the Gaiman bump pic.twitter.com/9qxDx7Ct58— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 15, 2020
Mail Online quoted what the store’s Social Media Manager said,
“We’re used to having slow days, especially in January and February, which are always notoriously bad. But yesterday was very strange. It was very stormy, so everyone was on lockdown. We had a few people come in and browse, but nobody was really in the buying mood. It got to about an hour before closing time and we realised we hadn’t taken a single penny all day. None of us could remember that ever happening before.”
Well, just a single tweet did the magic for the bookshop. This incident also urges us to help the people around us to whatever extent we are capable of.
