When Andy Hunter, Founder and CEO Bookshop.orgAfter his lifetime passion for books in the publishing industry in 2009, he saw an unstable change: Bookstores that defined their childhood and were going out of community business – rapidly losing a market share for Amazon.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Bookshop.org. Andy Hunter.
The number of American bookstors decreased by more than 50% in a period of about two decades, falling from 12,151 in 1998 to 6,045 in 2019. data County business patterns of Census Bureau.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, which initially focused on selling online books in July 1995. Today, the sale of the book is about 10% of Amazon’s profit. Estimated $ 28 billionIn 2020, the House Judicry Committee found that Ecommerce huge controls over 50% Total print book market and ebook market more than 80%.
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“Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities.”
Amidst the quick, concurrent development of Amazon and the ecommerce, Hunter felt that the bookstores were “facing an extinction incident.”
Hunter explains, “This is really like the environment, where you can have coral refuses, and when the coral reefs die, everything can happen,” Hunter says. “Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities. As they start dying, the importance of books in our culture also starts again.”
Hunter made his career in publication for more than a decade, during which he co-established literary websites Electrical literature And Literary hub And independent publisher cattle.
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Over the years, Hunter waited for someone to accept what is happening with the country’s bookstores, “to come up with some champions” and to save them. Then, in a dinner in 2018, sitting next to a member of the Board of Directors of the Hunter American Booksellers Association, who said Hunter had internet expertise – can he help in the online sales strategy of the organization?
Then the Hunter came with the idea for the book shop, online book vendor, who gives profit on independent bookstores across the country. If shopkeepers choose a specific local store to support, that small business receives 100% of the sales profit; Otherwise, 33% of the benefits are distributed between all bookstores on the platform.
“Fortunately, it was successful – and it was really successful beyond our wild dreams.”
“It was like a Hale Mary,” Hunter recalls. “At that time, I was so, Well, it will not be successfully successful because I have never done anything before, And Auds are completely against us. Nobody wanted to invest in it. But if you do nothing about it then nothing is going to be better, so at least (we were) are going to try to do something about it. And, fortunately, it was successful – and it was really successful beyond our wild dreams. ,
The bookshop was launched in January 2020, and in the early days, “very short, very luxurious” did not have a customer service team and saw minor sales. This changed when the epidemic hit about eight weeks later. Hunter says the daily sales of Bookshop increased from $ 10,000 to $ 50,000 to $ 150,000. In the same period, the number of bookstores on the platform increased from 250 to more than 1,500.
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Now, Bookshop is a certified B Corp that has raised more than $ 39 million for independent bookstores till date.
“Our profit is not very big because if our profit is very big, then it is far from our mission.”
Hunter says that the explosive growth of the startup began to decrease in 2022, as the customers returned to buy in-purses in their local bookstourse, saying Hunter. Bookshop was profitable in 2020 and 2021, then lost money every year through 2024.
“This year, we are beneficial again,” Hunter says, “but we are really thin. Our expenses are less than 13% of our total sales. We have something like $ 1.5 million per employee per employee.
Earlier this year, Bookshop dealt with its next frontier: e -books. Hunter says that the goal was to create a “really easy” application that would act in equipment in the US and other countries. The initiative launched in January has been a challenge for the small company, which lacks adequate financial support from the contestants. Digital reading subscription is service script Raised over $ 100 millionBook shop Gather $ 2.3 million To support your eBook platform.
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“So we are talking about a platform with competitors who are 50 times better funded,” Hunter says, “and also does not go to Amazon and how much money Amazon has spent on the kindle. So we are a great, ragtag band, who are enough for talented people who are able to draw us.”
Additionally, because Bookshop gives its benefit to independent bookstores, it does not have a large digital marketing budget. Bookshop spends about 2% of its revenue on advertising and marketing. Hunter says, unlike direct-to-consumer brands, who saw a big growth during epidemic and spent 15% to 30% of their topline revenue on digital marketing, depending on the bookshop Word-of-Mouth and referral.
So far, the bookshop’s Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategy is paying: The company is about a year ahead of its estimates for eBook sales, already 5% of the total sales.
“For us, to win, we got 5% Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstore.”
Of course, receiving the bookshop’s ebook on Amazon’s kindle devices can lead to even more significant increase. Although Kindle supports some third-party applications such as library reading app libbi, script and e-books from other platforms, not available on the device. Access requires Amazon’s permission, and the request letter sent to the company about four months ago has not yet received the reply.
Bookshop is almost three times more than the sale of total independent online bookstore in 2019, Hunter says – and he is firm to increase that number.
“Amazon is really powerful and has tons resources,” says Hunter. “They have found prime and there are many ways to lock in customers. So we try to be realistic, but for us, winning is not beating Amazon. For us, for us, we have to win, we have to win 5% Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstore – which will be a huge life line for free bookstore.”
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The good news is that independent bookstores appear to return.
“For the last five years, every single year, more bookstores have been opened than the closure of more bookstore,” says Hunter. “And now in 2019, the American Booksellers Association has about 2,800 independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association, from the lower level of about 1,900 independent bookstores.”
The American Booksellers Association, which advocates for independent bookstores, 2,433 bookstore companies reported In 2024 in 2,844 store locations, 11% increase in membership year after year. Bookshop currently hosts more than 2,200 independent stores on its platform.
“What kind of society are we eventually making.”
Hunter encourages everyone to consider the future that they want for themselves and the next generation – and every day the small decisions we make will shape it.
“There is a cost of convenience that is not clear for everyone on the face, and what kind of society we are eventually creating,” says Hunter. “(People) should try to make good options because they are living in the world that made those options.”
