On Monday, August 10th we were delighted to be joined by Dan Fridd, bookseller and book industry technologist, who fielded questions and a discussion about how to make online bookselling pay.

Since lockdown and the gradual easing that has occurred, many bookshops have had to rapidly move to sell and supply books through a range of online technologies, but it can be a hard problem to solve, particularly without specialist help. Even those bookshops which are doing extremely well online are finding it exhausting and with much smaller margins than physical selling in the shop.

For this month’s chat, we approached a number of bookshops beforehand to get their advice, recommendations and strategies on how best to make online work. The tips and advice below are a mix of those booksellers who responded beforehand, suggestions from participants during the chat, and of course Dan’s own responses.

You can view the tweets themselves (from this and previous chats) by searching on the #UCTmentor hashtag.

What do we mean by ‘online’

Dan Fridd: Generally bookshops have an online presence of some description. Consider how you can give customers or potential customers a better understanding of what you are offering, both in services and products. I believe a good online presence should complement your shop but not compromise it.

Other contributions:

• Online means extending your shop, your brand, your enthusiasm, your good customer service to reach people who cannot come to you.
• Being online can be anything from putting recommendations on Instagram or Facebook, to having a regular newsletter, to hosting events online or having a full online shop where people can browse, get recommendations and buy.
• Those shops who do online well give customers that same, friendly personal feeling. Online does not have to mean impersonal.
• Start with what you feel comfortable with: if you’ve designed a window, putting that on social media is not as much work as designing the window, but can reach more people.
• ‘Online sales’ can be as simple as recommending a favourite title in an email newsletter – and getting a response from that.

What are the most simple ways to ‘do more’ online?

Any online presence helps your shop get thrown in the mix of your customers’ online habits. It may be putting recommendations or events (virtual or otherwise) on Facebook, a newsletter where you give your regular customers tips, pre-order opportunities or discounts.

Or you could have a fully fledged transaction website for click and ship or click and collect purchases.

Instagram is a great way of showing off your favourite books and things you are excited about.

DF: Make it part of your booking-in process to set a few picture friendly books aside.

It is never too early to look ahead and think about Christmas – bookshops with websites will really benefit when customers are doing online shopping and can click and collect or order online if they can’t make it in.

I am thinking about it . . . are there any big dos and don’ts?

Some recommendations from Third Place Books in Seattle:

• Just putting a product on the home page does not sell it (notice we have very few books advertised on the home page).
• We feature our services and our style on the homepage – we want to demonstrate that we have a ton of things going on and that we are fun and approachable.

Since we reopened any online sales we were achieving have already dropped. Are people really switching to online?

DF: Some people want to support indies but can’t necessarily get to your shop.

Regular customers might not feel comfortable coming in to browse but still want to shop with you as they trust your suggestions. Giving them the browsability online with the same recommendations as they would get in person will keep them loyal shoppers.

This is about extending your reach to those people. Even your most loyal walk-in customers’ circumstances may change, especially now but they still want to support you. You need to meet them part of the way.

Two days’ work now will give you all you need to get you started – and of course you are ready if and when there is another lockdown. A daily/weekly update might only take you two minutes if you have the right set-up.

• It can be like having a second, smaller shop: you won’t have the cost of rent or rates but you will have some staff costs in maintaining it.
• If it brings in some additional income and reaches your customers who cannot get to you, at the very least it will keep the business going and offer increased visibility, marketing and some increase in turnover.

I want to do more online, but how can I possibly make shopping online the same as when I can welcome people into my shop?

DF: Think about all the things that are brilliant and unique about your shop.

Others can’t sell someone niche titles on local subjects, or a global bestseller and wrap them in a stripy paper bag to post out together.

(From Will Smith, Sam Read Bookseller): Mirroring the bookshop character, particularly with local books, means showcasing diverse small press titles without internet presences. It’s a way to ‘face out’ all books, and give them (and their authors/publishers) another sales avenue.

It’s about making it feel like your shop.

But it has to be said, some people prefer online, so be a hybrid bookshop and then you don’t miss out!

Regular customers might not feel comfortable coming in to browse but still want to shop with you as they trust your suggestions. Giving them the browsability online with the same recommendations as they would get in person will keep them loyal shoppers.

Categorising is a good start with that. If your categories match the shop categories, they will feel at home.

My best advice for this over and above the obvious branding, logos, fonts, colour scheme is to only list books on your site that you stock, would stock, or are looking forward to. Your personality will come through in your categories and stock.

Great indies with website styled as their physical shops are Pages of Hackney (@pagesofhackney), London Review Bookshop (@LRBbookshop) and Mainstreet Trading (@mainstreethare).

 Colour, font, branding and team recommendations all contribute to give the same feel as if you were in the bookshop.

(Third Place Books top tip): We like to have at least one photo of our employees on the web page.

What if I don’t even have a website?

DF on whether to do-it-yourself or use a web agency:  For what 99% of shops need, DIY is more than adequate and gives you ultimate control. When you approach an agency it’s in their interest to make you reliant on them going forward.

Make sure your site has low overheads. A site that is costing you 10s of pounds a month has to sell much more. A good shop stock system will ensure low time overheads too.

WordPress is where all my eggs are. Book Tokens payments portal has been developed and most Bertline reports are aimed at WordPress. DEFINITELY NOT Square. They have limitations on product variations which make it unsuitable for bookshops.

Today’s tools available for developing your website are not much different to being able to use Word or Outlook. I resent small businesses being quoted thousands for a website that might only bring in a few hundred pounds a month. Following a few simple steps can get you up and running very quickly and with the right Bookshop system (Bertline / Gardlink / Booksolve) you can make simple daily routines that keep your site updated and relevant.

Are there technical things I should be considering to make it look and feel like my shop?

DF: Categorising is a good place to start for this. If your categories match the shop categories, they will feel at home.

The three reasons I only list books in the shop or big new titles for pre-order are:

• Keep the online shop a reflection of your shop
• Avoid disappointing a customer with a book you can’t source
• Managing a 300,000 catalogue is hard. You would need to categorise all the books for a start. You also have to think about how this might slow down searches and general website performance. Keep it manageable or you’ll get lost in the data.

First of all, consider listing titles you have on your shelf. It gives a good, individual online showroom and highlights ranges that people will not see on other sites. And for customers not comfortable with online payments, they can pick up the phone and order a book that you have in stock.

I suspect there are *many* customers who for many reasons can’t (or won’t) come into your shop –and that was before lockdown. Using technology, reaching out – I truly believe this is about inclusivity and you may win many more customers by just taking a leap.

Consider what makes you unique as a bookshop and highlight it. Events? Specialisation in books? Children? Politics? Your online shop should make your customer feel like they are in your shop if possible.

Is there any easy way I can get book jackets and descriptions?

DF: Batch are working on this, I believe. However Bertline customers or anyone with a Nielsen subscription can get them using my technique on my tutorial video.

(So many people asked me for this I bumped it up the priority list. Hope it helps.)

At the moment we are supplying the basic listing and jacket image under the Gardlink data licence which makes the upload process quicker.

I have started using targeted mailings to only email people about a book/books that I know will be interested in it. This works but you need a good loyalty scheme to really utilise this. A website is a great way of getting customer emails too and they usually want to hear from you. Tailor what you send them using Edelweiss+ 360

What do you do about postage?

DF: I charge a flat rate and take the hit where I’m below – for me this is more manageable than trying to work out weights and dimensions but that is also possible. If I lose £2 on postage because a massive £30 hardback cost more than my flat rate… I’ve still sold a massive £30 book!

(From Third Place Books):

• Early on, we offered free shipping on orders of $25 or more
• Then we added an option at checkout that said “I’d like to contribute to the cost of shipping” (over 50% of the orders that qualified for free shipping chose to pay for shipping anyway)
• After 2 months of the free shipping our orders had increased to a large enough volume that we eliminated it. Our orders have stayed healthy ever since.

(From Mostly Books):

• Of course all of our [online initiatives] is in addition to having moved all of our stock onto our website so customers can browse and purchase what we have on offer and we deliver or put them aside for collection, depending on the customer’s preference.

How often should I update the content?

(Third Place Books): We look for ways for our page to “update itself” so it is always relevant. Our blog and our Instagram feeds are posted on the homepage, which keeps it up to date.

What sort of things work well online?

Frontlist / Pre-orders  –  Creating a space on your website that you can regularly update with the latest titles.

And Pre-orders! The fact a customer can rely on you to get them the next instalment in their favourite series is gold dust. Extend this to your website and you will quickly build up a much wider following.

DF: Making a site that is an extension of your shop helps those customers who cannot come in, but want to know that you are there, and feel part of your creation. Start a blog, keep a gallery, integrate your social media posts so you only have to do the work once. Update regularly, shout about the things (books usually) that make you happy.

(Third Place books):

• We drive traffic to the website via our social media and our email blasts
• Social media posts almost never try to “sell a book” but try to have a conversation and a relevant link back to our site
• Our email blasts that do promote individual titles, usually focus on “exclusive editions” (signed copies, etc)

Use the resources made available to you – Scour Nielsen charts, catalogues (preferably electronic), Edelweiss ordering trends. Where possible build up routines that can be easily replicated to streamline the process. Write them down and pass them over to other staff members.

Content is key! Start encouraging book reviews from other staff members or customers. Capture them electronically and use them. Start a blog. An excellent way of keeping the site fresh and improves SEO. Develops more frequent visitors.

It’s easy to develop a sale area on a site. Get rid of all those HB you couldn’t return.

Anything else?

Here’s a recorded presentation I did guiding you through everything from buying a domain to creating a website on WordPress:

GET EMAIL ADDRESSES for your customers. Start collecting email addresses as part of your loyalty scheme – If you can record sales of books against a loyalty card do it! Targeted emails are so much more effective and welcome than scattergun.

Think about tagging books in your stock system with meaningful information and shop relevant tags. Look at http://halfwayupthestairs.ie tag cloud for how powerful this can be. (@HalfwayUpBooks)

For Irish bookshops there is a €2,500 grant to help get online https://localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/Trading-Online-Voucher-Scheme-/

Get ready for Christmas now!

• Christmas is a time when your customers really rely on your expertise and your knowledge.
• You make all those choices about what books you stock anyway – that is really the hard part!
• Making those choices clear to people in other ways can become just part of the process. Start now and you may be quite comfortable with it by November!
• Like anything, think of it as a new skill that can be learned. Everything will take time and effort, but once you have systems in place, they will start to become routine.

Other suggestions:

• (Mostly Books): We’ve done a number of initiatives with schools and local charitable organisations where we’ve set up a coupon code that students and staff can use on our website.  This is either for a specific book or for a book of their choice, depending on the preference of the school.  Once the orders have been received, the books are ‘Invoice collected’ on Bertline and we then invoice the school for the total number of books sold.  There have been a few teething issues but it’s generally worked quite well and the schools all seemed to appreciate the simplicity of the approach.

Sarah at Mostly Books with moving their book group online:  “Our book club, The Mostly Books Cosy Club, was due to launch on 6th April with an in-person event at the Amey Theatre.  Obviously, lockdown stopped that from happening so we launched the club online instead and it’s going really well!

[Staff colleague] Lyndsey records a video each month where she presents the books on offer and this is sent out via email.  The members then give their top three choices and one of them is allocated to them to read over the month.  Each member is asked to send their thoughts about the book via email and Lyndsey then collates them and sends them out together with joining details for an (optional) zoom call.  The zoom call allows Cosy Clubbers to chat about what they’ve read and to hear from others about different books.   So far, this has worked really well as we now have over 60 members in the club and it’s growing every month!”

And that was the hour!

Some more advice and more help that’s available:

• Talk to your team and see if anyone would be enthusiastic about being more active online and use the skills available to you
• Definitely get in touch with Dan Fridd and the Unwin Charitable Trust mentor scheme for help
• Bookshop Mentor Mark Thornton wrote a piece in The Bookseller about using technology to boost accessibility and diversity in our shops: https://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/what-bookshop-1214203

A reminder that you can book a 30-minute Bookseller’s Mentoring Chat at short notice by emailing mentoring@unwincharitabletrust.org.uk and we’ll do our best to assign a mentor as soon as possible, by phone or video call (whatever you feel more comfortable with).

And please do join us for the next chat on Monday, September 14th at 7pm. Ahead of what is widely anticipated to be a record number of titles published this autumn, we’ll be discussing the skills of curation, selling and preparing for a successful Christmas. Follow #UCTmentor on Twitter to join in on the evening.