Bookshop.org

Online bookstore championing independent local bookshops

B2C
Retail
B2B
Marketplace
Entertainment
Community
eCommerce

Company mission

To help local, independent bookstores thrive in the age of ecommerce.

Employees

21-100

HQ Location

Williamsburg, NY

OTTA INSIGHTS

45% female employees

68% employee growth in 12 months

Otta's take on Bookshop.org

Theo Margolius headshot

Theo Margolius

COO of Otta

Bookshop.org, a public benefit corporation, was launched in January 2020 with a mission to encourage people to stop buying books from Amazon and start supporting local bookstores. As more people turn to online stores to purchase books, the founders of Bookshop.org wanted to improve the buying experience, whilst helping local independent businesses to get online as effortlessly as possible. The concept is simple: bookshops create their own online profile, and then earn 30% of any sales that come via their links on social media, newsletters and website. Bookshop.org then handles all the logistics and fulfilment, whilst giving away 75% of all profits to stores, publications, and authors.

Bookshop.org's play is interesting. It doesn’t expect to beat the e-commerce behemoth – only to help its competitors survive. The website already has thousands of retailers signed up and over $20 million has already been distributed to independent bookstores in the United States and United Kingdom.

The online books market is worth over $17b annually, so there remains plenty of opportunity for Bookshop.org to grow. Many of the 3,500 independent bookshops in the US and UK remain without an e-commerce function. The question, however, is how effective Bookshop.org can be at selling to their customers, without cannibalising brick and mortar sales – the bread and butter of this beleaguered industry.

Total funding - $3.3m

Last 2 fundraises

Aug 2020

$0.9m

SEED

Mar 2023

$2.4m

EARLY VC

Company benefits

  • Pension scheme
  • Book budget
  • Remote working arrangements
  • 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays)
  • Monthly team meetups in London for UK based employees
  • Company Macbook
  • Bike2Work Scheme - save up to 43.25% on the cost of bicycles and/or equipment

Founders

Previous publisher and editor in multiple organisations


People progressing

Joined as Customer Experience Specialist. Promoted to Customer Operations Team Leader after 12 months.

Joined as UK Operations Manager. Promoted to Head of Operations after a year and 2 months.


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