Australia’s answer to Amazon, Booktopia, is eyeing a massive sales target this financial year as it continues to buck the trend of traditional booksellers. Founded in 2004 in a 60sqm office in North Sydney with a expenditure budget of $10 a day, Booktopia sells one book every 10 seconds and ships more than one million parcels a year through Australia Post. In 2013, Booktopia sold more than two million items including books, audio books, e-books, and DVDs. Earlier this year the co
ompany moved to a 10,000sqm distribution centre.
Located at Homebush in Sydney’s west, the site includes the e-tailer’s headquarters and is more than twice the size of its original 4000sqm warehouse facility in Lane Cove.
“It’s the size of two football fields,” Tony Nash, CEO of Booktopia, said.
“There’s nothing like it here in Australia. There’s no one that competes with us in what we do. In the DC we have put in conveyors, automation, scanners, and weighing systems.”
The e-tailer’s warehouse holds more than 500,000 units of stock and has around 100 employees.
“Holding stock in your own DC is mission critical to succeeding online.
“For us, there are four million active titles on our website and we’re increasing that at the moment to have 100,000 of those instock ready to ship. That’s what consumers are looking for.
“They want to know, have you got it and can you ship it? We’re building that up right now. We have 60,000 to 65,000 at the moment.
Nash says Booktopia has been growing 40 per cent year on year for the last seven years.
“Every year and our goal is to increase by another 40 per cent.”
Last financial year Booktopia hit $40 million in turnover.
“The year before that we were $27.2 million, and the year before that we were $20.8 million. Our goal is to get to $56 million next year.”
The online retailer has also seen a 60 per cent uptake in transactions made on mobile devices.
“We have a lot more customers transacting with us on their mobile. When we send emails to our customers they’re reading them on their mobile.
“We’ve had a 50 per cent increase of conversion of sales on a mobile.”