Rare Book Monthly
Bibliopolis and Bookhound - Birds of a Feather
The outside of Bibliopolis' corrugated tin building.
We asked why they would give this product away. They explained that they thought it would be nice to let everyone use it free. Bookhound is the only bookseller software that is MAC and windows (cross platform) useable. Others are tied into third party search engines such as ABE, which is tied into Homebase. Bookhound is not tied into anyone. You don't have to sell on Biblio.com to use Bookhound. Bookhound is also a freeway to do ISBN lookups. You generally have to purchase other software to do ISBN look-ups. Bookhound also manages online sales and is designed to put out professional print catalogs, and lists, and contains a full fledged inventory system which gives sales reports. In fact, I told them Bookhound has so many features that the average bookseller would probably never learn how to use them all.
Since a lot of my business is with appraisals and consignments, I wondered if Bookhound had elements to deal with consignments. Alan said that the previous version of Bookhound did, indeed, have a consignment feature. But the new 7c version does not. They agreed that it is too difficult to furnish proper support. They noted that booksellers are a diverse lot and independent and no one does consignment the same way. Each bookseller has a different method of keeping track of their percentages. That requires lots of hands-on support. Each client wants them to customize their program to their own system. "When you're giving away a free product that's going to be distributed widely, it just isn't feasible to spend that much time on support," said Luke. "But, Bookhound has plenty of space to put notes into your database to keep track of consignments. We designed Bookhound to be able to handle 'work-arounds' so that the user can do things such as place optional fields or tag inventory certain ways. It is loose enough for independents. Homebase has certain limits and its features are tied into ABE and you're going to end up doing things the way ABE wants you to do them. Part of your independence with Bookhound is the ability to break out of someone else's business model and go your own way."
Alan likened it to sailing a nuclear sub using paddles; all the bookseller needs to do is row. Most will only use a small percentage of the features. But, it is designed to be a stand-alone bookshop software. PBA could use it. It can and is used to distribute art, and there is a work-around capability so that it can be maneuvered to handle most bookseller needs. Once you have the site working, it's fun and easy. In addition, if you have a problem using Bookhound, and Biblio.com is stumped, as they were with my inventory system, the guys at Bibliopolis are readily available to offer support. They actually answer their own phones and they get back to you quickly. Wow!
The other aspect of Bibliopolis is designing websites for booksellers. Do all booksellers actually need their own websites and shopping carts, we asked? Alan told me that their clients' websites do sell books, and they do quite well. If it is done right, booksellers get organic traffic from Google and other search engines and people will find you and will buy books. And, it provides tools for repeat clientele. "We have some clients who have been with us eight or nine years," said Luke. "A couple of our clients have dropped selling at third party locations because they have enough sales to do so." He noted that these independent clients are usually very specialized, offering collectibles, antiquarian books, rare books, or specific subjects.
"But there's a process you have to go through before you can do that." Luke and Alan told us. He said that in the short term it takes a while to get folks to come to your website. You have to offer good books, but more importantly, you must offer really good customer service. A bookseller should seek out repeat customers with unique inventory, high end books, collector's items, and rich descriptions of the books. The bottom line is that the bookseller needs to present the books in a way that makes people want to buy them. If the book is badly wrapped and damaged or not as described, the customer is not going to come back for more.
