244 – Wayne Baskin of Booktopia – Reading Into Ecommerce Success

Why the success of an Australian online book seller should matter to retailers... Wayne Baskin, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Booktopia (books, DVDs and Magazine Subscriptions from Australia's leading online bookstore with over 4 million titles) joins Marc Raco and Pavan Bahl at Shoptalk 2018 in Las Vegas. MouthMedia Network studios are powered by Sennheiser. In this episode: How Booktopia is bringing a lot of people online Media and books are growing in Australia and that growth coming primarily from Booktopia Booktopia started in 2004 on $10/day budget How the company sells a book or product every 6 seconds Owners had an SEO company, and how the $10/day budget was an imposed restriction Booktopia investing in team, packaging, 135k titles ready to ship same day, and the 13,000 square meter automated distribution center Plus -- 20+ people, ticket, message center, book experts, website, content, Being there for customers, focused on books Experts put the book in booktopia, high level customer experience Why customer service is not part of primary marketing messaging Build all of their own systems, tech is at base of all of business and operations, strategy 95%business in Australia, some New Zealand, truned off other counties due to duties, taxes, and fraud One of the most comprehensive data sets in Australia in terms of understanding customers (quality not quantity) What you can learn from layers of data One of the biggest affiliate programs in the book industry Considering sustainability and environmental impact of books Augmented reality and its future in books and retail Roald Dahl and running