Booktopia digs into Aussie heritage for its new chapter

Online bookseller Booktopia is back with a new owner and an aggressive growth strategy to take on Amazon by doubling down on its Aussie heritage.

Mr Shant Kradjian is the owner of Booktopia

Online bookstore Booktopia is investing in marketing to generate awareness of its relaunch and rebuild customer trust following its collapse in May.

The eCommerce company’s new owner Shant Kradjian, founder of consumer electronics business digiDirect, bought the brand in August and is moving quickly to restore its products and brand.

Mr Kradjian told The Growth Agenda he is investing heavily in marketing and inventory as he seeks to get the business back to peak performance by the end of the year.

“We’ve been trading for a couple of weeks now, and every day we’re seeing increasing revenue, increase in sales as well. Consumers want to come back and shop, and we need to be ready,” he said.

“Inventory is a big focus. You need inventory in the warehouse if you want to compete with the likes of Amazon.

“We want to ensure that stock is available on the platform, to ship the same day.

“If Australia Post can get the last mile piece right, we are responsible for the dispatch. We have the set up, but you need stock.

“We’re placing orders in significant volumes to make sure that we can fulfil the orders, especially ramping up to November, December, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas.

“We want it to be a massive December period, and we are backing it with more marketing than Booktopia has previously. We are backing with more inventory than Booktopia has previously.”

Mr Kradjian said a key element of the brand’s success would come from its ability to re-engage with Australian consumers and restore their trust in the business.

“We need to gain consumers’ trust again, I think that’s the challenge, and it’s something that we hope to overcome over time,” he said.

Booktopia is leaning into the brand restoration by honouring gift cards and store credits issued in the past 12 months and plans to roll out promotions, gifts with purchases and other deals to “give back to consumers who come back and try us out”.

To get these messages out there, Booktopia is investing in digital media marketing including search and social media, in addition to an influencer engagement strategy that aims to help bolster the brand’s community and following.

Mr Kradjian said Booktopia would “double-down” on its Australian heritage and its access to exclusive products from Australian writers and local publishers to engage with customers.

“Booktopia is an Australian brand and that is very important to us and to customers as well. Based on what we are seeing, customers want to buy from an Australian brand. We want to give back to that as well.

“In the past, Booktopia did a lot of good things with book signing for Australian authors and we want to double down on that strategy.

“We plan to do more with Australian authors around events and book signings.

“It’s important for the authors and the industry to have an Australian eCommerce platform that they can direct consumers to.”

As part of its strategy to engage an Australian community of booklovers, Booktopia will also invest in bespoke content development and is building a podcast studio to create exclusive audio content for its customers.

“We’re looking to create some point of differences in areas where some of our competitors probably can’t do the same things. The publishing side of the business and the ability to offer signed books and exclusive books that you can only buy on Booktopia, we are really doubling down on that.”

Booktopia is also in the process of leveraging its database of 1.8 million customers and plans to build a loyalty program.

It’s all part of a strategy to get the business back to its top performance in the next couple of years.

“Even in the last few years when it was struggling it was just shy of $170m in revenue,” Mr Kradjian said.

“I expect to get back to that number very quickly, and then from there, hopefully get around the $240m market in the next two years or so.

“It’s still early days, but we’re doing thousands of orders a day at the moment. We’re obviously still setting it up, but there is confidence, people are coming back and it’s been quite a positive response from customers but also authors and from an industry perspective.”

The business aims to be fulfilling 20,000 orders daily with an aim to reach 30,000 orders in the December retail period.

The strong response to Booktopia’s return is a signal of the brand’s following in the local market, where the brand had garnered loyal followings for its Australian brand positioning and support of local authors and publishers.

With the local bookselling market spilt into three main categories including independent bookstores, online retailers and bookstore chains and the department stores such as Kmart and Big W, Booktopia was viewed as a strong alternative to the global behemoth Amazon.

It comes as Australia’s bookselling market undergoes significant changes with a recent flurry of consolidation as two independent publishers Affirm Press and Pantera Press were acquired by larger publishing houses Simon & Schuster and Hardie Grant, respectively.

Booktopia was founded in 2004 and at its peak was valued at $400m.

The business went into voluntary administration in July. The acquisition by digiDirect included the Angus & Robertson and Co-Op Bookshop brands and inventory.