Bookshop.org Continues to See Strong Sales

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From Publishers Weekly:

Online bookseller Bookshop.org is on track this month to surpass $15 million returned to independent bookstores since the company began in 2019. That figure is in addition to the $250,000 it donated to Binc’s “Survive to Thrive” campaign. “It is a milestone we are anticipating surpassing by the end of July,” Andy Hunter, CEO of Bookshop.org, said.

Sales have reached $29 million this year, including tax and shipping, and are up 17% for the first half of 2021 compared with 2020. That increase comes despite an expected decline in sales compared to a year ago since April, when most bookstores around the country began to reopen form normal business. In the April-June period, sales were down 20% from the comparable time in 2020, less than the 30% drop that Hunter had been expecting. “Last year, June was very busy for us, particularly with the huge sales of antiracist books with the Black Lives Matter protests happening around the country. This year is more like a normal June.”

The site currently hosts 1,100 bookstores, with 400 using Bookshop exclusively for their e-commerce and another 700 that use it in addition to their own e-commerce solutions. Notably, among the top 10 highest earning bookstore sites on Bookshop, six are Black-owned bookstores, Hunter said. Of the sites top-selling books, several are multicultural and diverse titles, including How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith (Little, Brown), Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley Ford (Flatiron), Yoke by Jessamyn Stanley (Workman), and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Knopf), The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris(Atria) and Long Division by Kiese Laymon (Scribner).

“Our bestseller list does not look like the typical list,” Hunter said. “It reflects the diversity and iconoclastic nature of the community we serve.”

Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly

2 thoughts on “Bookshop.org Continues to See Strong Sales”

  1. But are they REALLY helping the bookstores? I mean, the shoppers are going online to THEIR store, which reinforces the mindset to shop online, not in those stuffy old brick-and-mortar places that you have to drive to.
    It’s nice that they’re sending money to booksellers (how do they choose which ones to bless and which to allow to flounder) but are they really helping those bookstores in a real way by convincing people that the neighborhood bookstore is THE place to shop?
    Heck, if I ran one of the shops selling through this site, I’d just consider going full-on e-commerce instead of continuing to pay rent since that seems to be where the people are going.

    • They are seeing a 17% rise?
      And what are the “partner” stores seeing?
      A better or worse rise?
      Flat revenue?
      A 17% drop?

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