The Bookseller.com

17th May 2008

Kieron Smith is managing director of Retail8, a division of ArgentVive. Retail8 is working on a number of online projects, and also runs SamedayBooks.com, and the Chertsey & Worthing Bookshops.

Hopping to a new tune

01.04.08

BookRabbit hopped on to the scene last week, after a mere two and a half months development above our bookshop in Chertsey. We have started by opening ourselves up for criticism by the trade only - giving our industry peers a chance to have a play first, before we let the public in at the end of April.

Our starting point was that we wanted to make the site very different from the other online retailers, many of us had worked at competitors and felt that their offerings, although efficient, were somewhat soulless. We wanted to put the people back into the online shopping experience. With this in mind started building a site with three clear distinctive differences.
 
Firstly, that real books should have a real presence - I love nosing at other people's bookcases, the weird juxtapositions of books people choose to keep and have gathered from many sources seems to me to be both a real window into someone, their passions, and also has the ability to make connections between books that couldn't be further from the 'if you love you'll like' manufactured link. Our simple idea was that people could upload  bookcase images and display them as part of their profile, then make them  browsable by clicking through the books on them into other books and other  bookcases -  for the user to 'tag' the titles at the  beginning, but something we want to automate as soon as possible, by computers reading the spines of books.

Secondly, we were frustrated by browsing online - what is a pleasurable experience in the high street becomes positively tortuous online, the inflexible standard industry classifications being used to give a structure - but not one that lives with the site. Wikipedia served as an inspiration for us in how to solve this issue. What we have chosen to do is open up the entire catalogue for anyone to create  categories, sub categories, sub sub categories etc to both tap into people's knowledge of specialist areas (the creator gets some kudos next to their created category) and have something interesting to browse again. That is as quirky and entertaining as a real bookshop.

Finally, we believe that everyone is multi-channel now, everyone shops on and offline. We weren't going to open any more shops - we have ones in Chertsey and Worthing, but we did want all the exceptional independent bookseller voices out there to be a part of what we're doing. As a result every book details page has on it a tab for booksellers, so a reader can check to see if their book is available from a local store, which has uploaded their inventory. We're offering this free of charge because we want the booksellers out there to take part in the site - to part promote their bookshops by setting up categories and groups online, and also because this also makes our site a more exciting place to visit.

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be fine tuning our bookseller offering whereby bookshops will be able to upload stock, ISBN and their prices, enabling a shopper local to the shop to chose to reserve the title or, if the bookseller allows it, buy using PayPal directly. Ideally we'd like customers to buy both from us and to use their local bookshop by popping in. As a result we get a human face for BookRabbit and a stronger relationship with  customers.

Most independent shop details are on the site already and we'd encourage independents to request an invitation key at www.BookRabbit.com , check their details and start taking part on the site. Inventory load and the option to buy will work properly before we launch to consumers so now is an ideal time to get on board.

There are of course many other great things on the site I could bang on about, but hopefully you'll come and have a play and let me know all the things we forgot!