It looks like Aussies are turning more pages through restricted social activities, as book sales are flying out the door.
Booktopia reports a 28% increase in new book sales during the 2020 financial year, with total sales topping $165 million for the first time.
The company’s customer database has increased to 4.5 million, with over 1.4 million active customers.
Booktopia founder and CEO, Tony Nash talks about the volume of online sales, “The growth of online purchasing of physical books has been increasing steadily, year on year for many years.
“The events of the last six months have now brought forward much of that future growth and we would expect many of the converts to be convinced that online purchases are their new preference.”
Mr Nash notes that the Australian book and publishing market was in its strongest position in many years, with demand across numerous categories at record levels and major new releases, expected to drive sales right up to Christmas.
“With the Australian book market valued at more than $2.5 billion there is still plenty of capacity to grow and we have spent the last 12 months ensuring we have the inventory and distribution capacity in place to handle growth.”
Booktopia, who celebrates its 16th birthday this year, has also raised $20 million in capital as part of a major expansion of its inventory and picking and packing capacity at its Lidcombe distribution centre in Sydney.
In recent years Booktopia has acquired some of Australia’s leading book retailers including University Co-operative Bookshops in 2020 and Angus & Robertson back in 2015.