Booktopia: “Books have always been more than products”

In the lead-up to the 2026 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs), Books+Publishing is inviting the event’s major sponsors to share little-known facts about their organisations, their top tips for booksellers and publishers, and their thoughts on the status of our industry. In this year’s first instalment, Booktopia head of merchandise Sophie Higgins is in conversation with general manager Jon MacDonald.

This segment is supported by the event sponsors. 

Booktopia has now been trading for over a year under new ownership. How would you describe the current state of the business?

Honestly, it feels really good to be talking about momentum.

When we relaunched under the digiDirect Group in August 2024, we knew the road back would take patience and discipline – and it has. But the results so far are really encouraging. In the past year, the business has processed more than 1.5 million orders, with growth across new customers, repeat purchasing, and average basket size.

What I’m most proud of is how that growth has come about. It hasn’t been driven by aggressive discounting or short-term promotional pushes. It’s been earned through better availability, smarter ranging and stronger data integrity – the foundations that make a business genuinely sustainable. We’ve also reclaimed meaningful share in key segments like academic and professional, as measured by Nielsen BookScan.

Now we’re shifting gears. The rebuilding phase has given us a strong base, and the focus now is acceleration. We’re building a modern, data-intelligent bookselling model that creates lasting value for our publishing and supply partners and reinforces Booktopia’s place as Australia’s leading home-grown specialist online bookseller.

How are you balancing range breadth with commercial depth?

Breadth is in Booktopia’s DNA; it’s part of what customers love about us and what sets us apart. But breadth alone doesn’t win. You also need the right titles in stock when a customer is ready to buy.

Our approach is to pair that catalogue breadth with disciplined depth on the titles that really matter. Using our rich pool of data and our category insight, we’re refining where deeper stock investment delivers the strongest and most sustainable conversion uplift, and we’re getting sharper at that every month.

For publishers and suppliers, this creates a unique opportunity to collaborate. We want to align on priority lists, sync promotional timing with inventory planning, and reduce missed demand at the moments that count. Less chasing spikes, more building predictable sell-through and consistent reorder velocity across frontlist and backlist titles.

The goal is a supply model built on stability, transparency and shared growth – something that works for everyone across the entire range.

How is Booktopia supporting publishers and suppliers beyond transactional buying?

This is something I feel really strongly about, because books aren’t widgets, and our relationships with publishers and suppliers shouldn’t be simply transactional.

Over the past year, more than 150 authors have taken part in our warehouse signing programs, creating exclusive signed editions and producing content that differentiates our offer and drives incremental volume. These programs extend the promotional life of a title well beyond its launch window and reinforce our commitment to Australian authors and storytelling, something that matters deeply to us.

We’re also investing in personalised recommendations that blend AI and expert human curation. Data gives us powerful insight into behaviour and demand signals, but it’s editorial judgement and category knowledge that shape how titles are actually surfaced and championed. That human layer is irreplaceable. It’s what helps us elevate midlist and backlist titles alongside major releases, extending their commercial life and strengthening discoverability across a long catalogue tail.

Campaign collaboration has become far more strategic, too. We’re pairing performance marketing with thoughtful merchandising and curated placements, working with partners on ISBN-led campaigns that align media investment, storytelling and stock planning. And wherever we can, we’re sharing insights into demand signals and campaign outcomes to help inform future publishing and marketing decisions.

Our marketing team has also been doing some fantastic work creating engaging social content to support key new releases, giving authors a bigger stage to connect with readers. That includes the launch of our longer-form content series, Beyond the Page, which has already proven really popular. We’re excited to continue to grow that in the coming months.

At the end of the day, in an increasingly automated retail environment, we believe books benefit from both data intelligence and human advocacy. Our role isn’t simply to transact, it’s also to curate, amplify and build enduring value for authors, publishers and suppliers. That’s very much at the heart of what we mean by customer obsession.

What role does community and industry stewardship play in Booktopia’s model?

It’s central, and it’s something I think genuinely sets us apart.

Corporate and social responsibility is woven into our identity as Australia’s leading bookseller, and it’s core to the vision of the digiDirect Foundation, the philanthropic arm of our parent company. Through partnerships with organisations like the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, we support initiatives that deliver books to remote and under-resourced communities across Australia. We’ve also collaborated with Harbour to Hawkesbury Sydney – one of Lifeline Australia’s largest members – on large-scale book fairs and fundraising programs that extend the life of books while supporting critical services. In the past year alone, the foundation has also donated well over $500,000 to a range of local charities.

For publishers and suppliers, these collaborations offer something meaningful beyond the commercial. It’s an opportunity to align business success with real community impact. Donated stock, author participation and co-branded initiatives strengthen the broader reading ecosystem and help to reinforce the cultural value of books in Australian society.

I really do believe that a healthy reading culture supports the entire supply chain. Stewardship isn’t separate from commercial success; it underpins it.

What does the next 12 to 24 months look like for partners working with Booktopia?

Exciting!

We’re making significant investment in our core technology and commerce infrastructure. A major platform evolution is underway across our retail businesses that will modernise how we manage product data, purchasing, inventory visibility, warehousing and customer experience. This isn’t incremental tinkering; it’s a structural investment that will make Booktopia a more agile, sustainable, data-driven and future-proof partner.

For publishers and suppliers, that translates into improved stock transparency, stronger forecasting capability and tighter alignment between campaign activity and inventory planning. It will also sharpen discoverability, personalisation and speed to market. Above all, it will help us reach new customers and connect them with books more effectively than ever, meaning more sales, deeper into publisher lists.

Alongside the technology work, we’re deepening commercial collaboration through core range partnerships, structured frontlist investment, campaign-aligned stock planning, academic and professional list expansion, and exclusive differentiated editions.

We’re also really excited about formalising our loyalty strategy – rewarding customers in a more meaningful way and fostering our engaged community base. There’s significant potential there that we’re looking forward to unlocking.

And through the evolution of our digital proposition and delivery experience, there will be additional unique promotional and advertising opportunities for partners wanting to hero their key titles, all as part of the expanding digiConnect retail media network, which has already attracted a strong cohort of partners since its launch in 2025.

Given our growing active customer base and real momentum across both consumer and B2B channels, I feel genuinely optimistic about where we’re headed. We don’t just want to be the best place in Australia to discover and buy books; we want to be the best place to sell them, too.

Why does Australian bookselling still matter? 

Because books have always been more than products. I think most people in this industry feel that in their bones.

The way books are surfaced, recommended and championed truly shapes what people read and, in many cases, how they think. When a retailer backs a debut author, keeps a midlist title visible for longer, or invests in a niche category, that’s not just a commercial decision. I think it can also have a real cultural impact.

In a market that’s increasingly driven by scale and automation, I still believe there is enormous value in local knowledge, editorial judgement and long-term relationships. That’s what we’re here to protect and build on.

The Australian Book Industry Awards are presented for achievements in bringing Australian books to readers. 

Books+Publishing is the Australian book industry’s number-one source for news, opinions, pre-publication reviews, jobs, and advertisements.

Category: ABIA