By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Digital technology has transformed the retail landscape, and that didn’t exempt bookstores. Over the last 10 years, people in the United States spent more than $125 billion on online book shopping. Overall revenues from online book sales have jumped over the last few years, from $8.8 billion in 2011.
The figures tell us one thing: an online bookstore can be a lucrative venture. Besides, online bookstores yield relatively low startup costs–as low as $500. Unlike brick-and-mortar bookstores that can reach only customers within the immediate vicinity, with online bookstores, you can reach avid book readers all over the world.
Plus, these customers can buy their favorite books at their convenience, anytime and anywhere. This can easily translate to a good business reputation for you.
But how do you set up this type of business in the first place? Learn everything you need to know to start an online bookstore from scratch with this article.
6 Steps to Start Your Online Bookstore
Follow these steps, and you’ll have your online bookstore up and running in no time!
1. Research and Plan Your Niche
You need to choose a niche before you can start an online bookstore. When you zero in on a niche, you can ensure all your business efforts are targeted toward a specific audience.
Here are some popular book niches:
Children’s books: If you sell children’s books, you can cater to parents and grandparents who are constantly on the lookout for gift ideas.
Non-fiction: These books can come in different forms, from self-help resources to history. They help the target audience know more about the world around them.
Genre fiction: Genre fiction books are known for their populist appeal. They can be everything from science fiction to horror and fantasy.
General fiction: These are overall fictional resources that don’t fit into any major book category. Books with imaginary settings in the past but with characters from actual history, for instance, can be categorized as general fiction.
Do some research to determine the following:
- Who is your likely book supplier? More on this later.
- What types of books does the supplier sell?
- If you plan to self-publish, what’s your topic expertise?
- What types of books does your competition sell?
The answers to these questions will help you determine the best niche for your online bookstore.
2. Choose a Business Model
Once you’ve chosen a niche, it’s time to determine your business model. There are several models to choose from. You can choose at least one of these models for your online bookstore:
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is simply an ecommerce method that sees you selling products you don’t own or stock. You agree to list the books of a dropshipper on your site. When someone buys a book from you, it’s the dropshipper’s responsibility to fulfill that order. You only pay once you’ve sold an item.
Here is an illustration from our blog on digital dropshipping:
Because of the setup, dropshipping is a cost-effective business model with a low barrier to entry.
Inventory
When you hold your own inventory, you buy and store the physical books you sell. That means this model requires more money and space than the dropshipping model. You’ll need to spend more time, too, since you’ll be the one managing your inventory levels, packaging, and fulfillment orders, among others.
The good thing about holding your own inventory is that you have control over these major aspects of running an online bookstore. That means you have control over your overall product quality and services.
Membership or Subscription Services
With this model, customers can gain access to your wide range of books by paying for a membership fee or subscription services fee. Books can enjoy wider reach with this model, with customers encouraged to enjoy as many books as they can to get the most out of the money they shell out.
You’ll have to determine, too, whether you’ll sell books by other authors or your own books. The second option gives you full control over the publishing process, although you’ll need more money and time than if you choose the first option. After all, if you decide to self-publish, you’ll be in charge of everything from writing to editing and cover design as well.
3. Create a Business Plan
You can’t possibly start an online bookstore without a business plan. The plan outlines your business goals and your strategies for achieving them. It serves as a comprehensive roadmap for your online bookstore
Your business plan should have the following important components:
Marketing plan: We’ll talk more about this later.
Financial plan: This section describes your budget for setting up your online bookstore and associated costs. These costs may include the fees associated with the software to be used to sell your books, publishing costs if you decide to self-publish, packaging costs if you handle your own inventory, among others. In this section, you may also include your sales projections for a given period.
Legal plan: The section outlines the legal requirements you’ll need to comply with to start an online bookstore successfully. Depending on the local government, you may need to specify how exactly you’ll secure a federal tax ID number, a permit or a business license in this section.
Executive summary: It provides a brief overview of your comprehensive business plan and outlines the most important points.
The more specific your business plan is, the better.
4. Build Your Online Store
Now it’s time to build your online store. The store will need an eCommerce functionality, where you can host your product catalog and allow potential customers to browse the catalog, add items to cart, and check out securely.
Start by choosing a web host and plan that support eCommerce services. In most cases, the plan you choose also includes domain registration services. That means you typically wouldn’t have to purchase your domain name through a domain registrar on your own. Many also offer a one-click install solution for WordPress. So, you just input your site details, click, and WordPress will be installed on the server instantly.
As soon as your domain name and WordPress are up and running, you can start building the actual site. WordPress makes it easy to do this with its wide range of bookstore WordPress themes like Astra and Bookstore Starter. You can just pair these with WordPress templates to effectively showcase your products on your website. Don’t forget to choose templates that best showcase your online bookstore branding.
You’ll also need to choose an ecommerce platform that will help you process payments, manage inventory, among others, in your online bookstore. For WordPress, WooCommerce is an obvious choice. All you need to do is install the WordPress plugin, follow the instructions, and you’ll turn your static website into an online store people can buy from. It’s best to pay for some add-ons if you want to get the most of the plugin.
Now if all this sounds complicated, you can always just hire the services of a website developer to create your online bookstore or avail of the services of seller portals like AliExpress.
5. Source Your Books
Let’s say you’ve set up your online bookstore. Congratulations! Now all you need to do is fill it with books to sell.
You can source books from one or more of these:
Wholesaler
Although wholesalers sell books in bulk at a discount, this may not be the best option unless you have a lot of physical space to store the products or already have many customers waiting to make a purchase.
Online retailer
You may have to pay a bit more with this strategy than if you buy wholesale. The good thing is you’ll likely have more title options.
Book owners (used books)
You can source used items from people who already own these books.
Publishers and distributors
Why not go straight to book publishers and distributors? If you decide to self-publish, this is you. If you don’t self-publish, these are entities that may sell books at a higher price than wholesalers but will likely have a wider range of book titles to offer to you.
Your book sourcing choice will depend on your resources (money, space, for example). Once you’ve decided on the type of supplier, just use Google to get a relevant list of sellers you can reach out to. To find owners of used books, you can also check out online marketplaces such as AliExpress and Amazon.
6. Promote Your Store
As I mentioned earlier, your business plan should also detail the strategies you’ll use to promote your online bookstore. Here are some options to consider:
SEO: Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website to enhance its visibility in search engine results pages. This entails using the right keywords in your website content, optimizing your site page speed by compressing images, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly, among others.
Organic social media marketing: Why not promote your online bookstore on social media platforms? You have many types of social media content to choose from—from polls and quizzes to infographics and ordinary social media posts.
Email marketing: Nurture your customers and potential customers by sending them marketing emails regularly. You can send everything from emails about your newest book additions or monthly roundups of your best-selling books.
Paid ads: You can leverage a wide range of paid ads, from social media to Google advertisements. Paid ads offer excellent targeting features. There are also analytics tools that make it easy for you to optimize your content. For instance, in-built and third-party social media analytics tools can give you relevant data such as clicks, shares, and likes. Google Analytics 4, on the other hand, can tell you how much traffic and conversions are attributed to a Performance Max campaign, for example.
Offline events: You can promote your online bookstore the tried-and-tested way: in in-person events like book fairs and other publishing industry-related events.
Of course, for the best promotional results, you can combine two or more marketing methods.
For example, why not market your store when you attend book fairs or other publishing industry-related events and then nurture your potential customers through email marketing? Just make sure you have an e-business card you can use to collect warm, qualified leads using two-way contact sharing during these events. These leads will automatically be added to your digital address book, which you can easily access later when sending your marketing emails.
Conclusion
An online bookstore is a great way to earn from your passion for books. But to start an online bookstore the right way, you need a strategy.
You learned six steps you should follow for optimal results.
Research and plan your niche, choose a business model, create a business plan and build your online store. Don’t forget to source your books and promote your online store.
If you follow these steps, you’ll have a fully-functioning online bookstore that generates sales in no time.
Need more information about dropshipping? Explore DSers blog now!
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
All rights reserved to : USAGOLDMIES . www.usagoldmines.com
You can Enjoy surfing our website categories and read more content in many fields you may like .
Why USAGoldMines ?
USAGoldMines is a comprehensive website offering the latest in financial, crypto, and technical news. With specialized sections for each category, it provides readers with up-to-date market insights, investment trends, and technological advancements, making it a valuable resource for investors and enthusiasts in the fast-paced financial world.