Bookshop.org has appeared as a new initiative that aims to support the local and independent booksellers. With its successful launch in the US, early this year, Bookshop.org has also made its launch now in the United Kingdom. The founder of Bookshop.org Andy Hunter is a writer himself. In this ongoing tend where Amazon is working as a giant seller and grabbing all the market share, Andy wanted to help the local booksellers to survive. The website made its first appearance in the US in January of this year.
In the first weeks of its launch, Bookshop.org’s goal was to improve, refine, and make some small yet significant changes to the e-commerce website in the first 6 months. Also, in The Guardian Andy has expressed how Cvid19 affected their plan for this.
With its launch of the online platform in the United Kingdom, Bookshop.org went live with its partnership with 130 local and independent bookstores. Bookshop.org helps these bookstores to have their shopfront for the virtual world Bookshop.org. Along with this alliance, the store owners will get the full profit margin, which is given from 30% of the cover price of every sale. As Andy said: “Stores get the full profit margin from each sale.”
Bookshop.org and their distributor partners are handling all the customer service and shipping across the US and the United Kingdom.
Moreover, the Bookshop has made its profit in the US with their selling of books 50000 dollars in February. The growth of this sale was evident, as they sold the same amount of books a day in March, which was followed by 150000/ day in April. The Bookshop has made their highest margin with the sale of 1 million dollars in a day in June.
The Bookshop.org is now in the process of applying for the B Corporation Certification in the United Kingdom. The rule which is set by Andy for his Bookshop is, it will never be sold itself to a major US-based retailer like Amazon- “Bookshop can never be sold to Amazon.”