Home – New › Forums › Starting your journey › Starting an online bookshop › Reply To: Starting an online bookshop
I started Australia’s first ever online business bookshop way back in the 90s In those days it was so unique I even had Govt department websites pointing to my site!
In those days publishers made me buy minimum numbers of books which made it hard as I had to guess what would sell – not always correctly!
These days drop ship, as suggested is the only way to go.
Also the only way to go is to arrange a direct feed from their database to yours, either through live updates or daily/weekly updates. A good programmer will be able to do this for you.
I agree with the niching suggestion, although as the business grows you may explore expanding the subject range.
I also agree with the impact of Ebooks and instant publishing options (such as Lulu) and see how that will fit into your mix.
The essential think is to focus on it properly, research everything, educate yourself lots ( I mean maybe 100 hours at least searching and reading – there is a mountain of stuff on the internet) before asking too many questions, so the questions you do ask will be those that people can provide good reasoned responses to, rather than, “then I am blank” as this shows you have not put any serious and sustained thought or effort into it.
