Fully Booked goes online

Although still enjoying an upbeat response from the market, Filipino-owned bookstore chain Fully Booked now goes online as the eBook trend slowly eats up the physical bookstore business.

Fully Booked managing director Jaime A. Daez said that although online bookstores, such as Amazon.com, have not yet affected physical bookstores in the Philippines, it is still best to be a step forward and prepare for the future saying, "eReaders can surely make a dent, but only time will tell, when."

 Daez said one way to protect the chain from being affected by the increasing number of eReaders, and online book buyers, is to join the trend.

Fully Booked recently opened its online venture to sustain its business, while technology provides different platforms of doing business, especially in the lifestyle bookstore trade.

Fully Booked, which recently opened its first outlet outside of Metro Manila, at the Ayala Center Cebu’s The Terraces, is now focusing on publishing illustrative books developed in the Philippines, as well as Coffee Table Books, as these type of products can be sold outside of the country, and will help push the success of its online venture.

Daez noted that the Philippines lack a variety of "Coffee Table Books" that would also promote the country to the other parts of the world, showcasing culture, travel, destinations, food, among others.

As of now, Fully Booked offers mostly foreign published books, most of them are hard-to-find published materials. But, Daez said he is not discounting the effect of online bookstore popularity in long term, while most young generation is now embracing eBooks as an alternative.

He said now that Fully Booked is in Cebu, he is also planning to support local publishing outlets to promote local writers, and even the emerging animation industry.

"We have a lot of world-class talent here," Daez said emphasizing that part of the company's thrust is to promote local publishing outlets, and encourage them to venture into Coffee Table Books, as well as Filipino-developed Children's books.

Although, the worldwide performance of bookstore trade is flat, he is optimistic that the Philippine market will still largely patronize the physical bookstore type, over online book shopping, or reading in eBooks.

"Selling books is not a very profitable business where we get very high margins," he said. But so far, in the Philippines the business is stable.

Today's high-technology generation, however poses a challenge to the physical bookstore business, as information materials, and trading of best-seller and hard-to-find books can be easily found in the Internet.

Daez said the company will also start an advocacy to make reading as "exciting and dynamic" especially for the younger generation.