Setting up her flagship store through a joint venture with Cino to Go is just one of many strategies Kirstin Butcher is developing to grow her Bookstop business.
Ms Butcher launched Bookstop late in 2002, initially in a tiny shop in London Court, to test the formula of selling books that had been reviewed by Bookstop reviewers.
Distribution has since been expanded into a number of hotel groups across Australia and, in the next six months, Ms Butcher hopes to secure retail distribution deals in the US.
In a similar model to the pay-per-view movie concept, Bookstop provides a list of book reviews for hotel guests who, if they want to read a particular title, can buy the book at the hotel.
“My focus is on the US,” Ms Butcher said.
“Everything we do here we could do in the US. We are in the process of putting a team together over there, which includes Australians and Americans.
“We’ve had some discussions with hotels in America and Canada and they are interested.
“In Australia we are going very well. We are in five States and through a range of different hotel groups like The Hyatt, The Chifley and The Rydges.”
Ms Butcher, a WA Business News 40under40 winner, is keen to set up more shopfronts to build brand and awareness for Bookstop.
Her London Court shop will be joined by a new flagship site in SubiCentro, the result of a recent joint venture struck with Cino to Go managing director Nigel Oakey.
Ms Butcher said teaming up with the coffee group has the potential for further growth opportunities she said.
“I was looking at the book cafe model a couple of years ago and I was going to contact Nigel but I decided to go into hotels first and then Nigel gave me a call,” Ms Butcher said.
While the two stores have separate fit-outs, and the businesses will run separately, the layout has been developed to allow customers of both shops to have a coffee and read a book at either site.
“You can walk through from Cino and have a coffee in our store and read a book,” Ms Butcher said.
“I think book cafes are a great idea, but I had no intention of making coffee and Cino had no intention of selling books.”
The store is situated in SubiCentro and will open on September 1.
The Subiaco site will become the model store for a national rollout.
“The fit out has been designed by Williams Boag from Melbourne,” Ms Butcher said.
“We’re spending quite a bit of money on it. It’s not going to be musty. We want people to like the design as much as they like the books.
“The next store I think will be in Melbourne because it helps us to have a physical presence; a lot of the hotel groups are based there. I think the retail model is viable there and we will look to do that in the next three to six months.”