Selling books online: new case study for digitalbusiness.gov.au
We’ve just published a new case study to the website on Asia Bookroom, a specialist bookshop. Asia Bookroom is both a physical retailer and an online one, combining a physical shop in Macquarie, Canberra with a website and online shop. While the business itself has been operating since the late 1970s, Asia Bookroom has had an online presence since 1995. The business is managed by its director, Sally Burdon.
Sally offers some useful insights for those business owners who may be a little daunted about learning something new to get online. “I often feel that people kind of get wrapped up in this whole internet thing. It’s just another way of delivery, it’s just very similar to when we used to do printed catalogues, before the internet came along.”
“I sort of view the whole internet selling thing as like having another shop,” Sally said. “So if you open a shop or open any business there are all sorts of costs involved, and if you want to do without carpet and you want to do without all these things, well, great if you’re selling junky stuff, but if you’re trying to do something a bit better than that, you know, you’re crazy. And it’s the same with setting yourself up on the internet.”
“I don’t think there is anything very different about the internet,” she said. “For anyone who is sort of thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know anything about it,’ the best thing to do is leap in and get started and to use general business principles.”
As with many online bookshops, its online presence grew out of an existing mail order business, but over time the core business has changed. Today, the bookshop makes 75 per cent of its sales online, 25 per cent of which are made to international buyers.
For more information, take a look at the Asia Bookroom case study page or watch the embedded video below. You can also find the transcript here.
Bookshop owners who dont change there business model to sell online – and soon – will be very very lucky to still be operating in 5 years.
I have to agree. A friend has closed down both his retail premises and is only operating online now. He has doubled hos bottom line in 2 years.
I think the moral is that you need to niche to survive or thrive. A generalist bookstore won’t to do so well, as a bookstore that has a specific niche such as Asia bookroom
This video provides some great advice. We help businesses in SA to get online and also mentor them through some of the barriers and pitfalls to getting online. Thanks a lot for putting these videos and site up and especially for the CC license. We will be using the information and embedding the your RSS feed in our site.
Great case study! One thing we can learn from history is that in tough times those businesses that embrace technology are the ones that thrive. During the Great Depression, the businesses that succeeded were the ones that embraced the move from advertising in newspapers to advertising on radio. During the GFC, businesses that are thriving are the ones that are integrating their bricks and mortar businesses with advertising and selling on the internet.