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RENTING A BOOK ON THE NET
The Star, In.Tech, August 9, 2005
IF you can now buy clothes, art and computers online, why shouldn’t you be able to rent books as well?
The secondhand bookshop, as we know it, is no longer confined to brick and mortar shops. Two industrious young people have ventured online to rent books to people in Malaysia.
Reader’s Shack (www.readersshack.com) was started by Lily Liang and Lau Sie Sing in October last year.
Explains Lau: “Lily likes to read books. However, books are not cheap. She has wanted to start (a project or business on) books for quite a long time. One idea was to set up a bookshop, but cost is a factor. So we thought about book rental. We wanted to start it off on a part-time basis, so we came up with an online version first.”
Local customers
Reader’s Shack offers books for rental at about RM5 on average. The service is available to people in Malaysia. For those in the Klang Valley, Reader’s Shack arranges to meet customers at certain pickup points, typically LRT stations, to deliver the book and collect the rental fee. The books are returned and the return fee paid the same way.
For those outside of the Klang Valley, Reader’s Shack posts the book, but the cost of postage is borne by the customer.
“Response has been quite slow,” says Lau. However, this is welcome for now because it is still a part-time venture and hence it is manageable.
According to Lau, Reader’s Shack also takes book requests from readers.
“They can request for books that we don’t have in our inventory. There’s no guarantee on our part that we can get the requested book, but if our suppliers have it and we can get it at a cheaper price than at the shops, then we will inform the customer and arrange for a pickup. So that saves the customer the hassle of going out and looking for the book,” he says.
Just in time rental
Not having a fixed inventory of books is an advantage, says Lau. “One thing we observed about secondhand bookshops is that the books are on the shelves, so it’s limited to what they already have in the shop.
“We go by demand. If there’s enough demand or we foresee demand for a new book then we will go ahead and purchase at cost. With that we start renting to people. By doing this, we serve two purposes: We are not limited by the books that are in the shop; and the books are fresh and new.”
Modestly, Lau says he and Liang are just offering Malaysians “another avenue” to get books.
“Eventually there might be a market for this service in Malaysia. The book reading culture is still not that mature here. There are bookshops and there are people who like to buy books, but if you compare Malaysia with other countries, we are still not at the point where people always have a book in hand wherever they are. But I believe it will slowly get to that point as people become more educated and start to read more,” he says.
Another reason why it might be early days yet for online book rentals is that the percentage of Malaysians who conduct online transactions is still limited.
Citing an example, Lau says he has even had requests to visit the Reader’s Shack’s “shop.”
“It’s a purely online business. Some people don’t really buy the idea yet,” says Lau.
To assist the people who are not used to a shop that exists entirely in cyberspace, Lau and Liang are thinking of setting up a seasonal stall at a shopping complex.
“Just to gain some popularity so people will recognise the Reader’s Shack and know that it actually does exist and is not a hoax website,” he explains.
Fiction tops the list
Right now Reader’s Shack’s books comprise of romance, fiction, non-fiction (including autobiographies), children’s books and self-improvement books.
With Liang temporarily in the United States, Lau hopes she might even source for books there.
“The books there are actually very, very cheap, especially used books. Over there you can get used books for less than a dollar, and they are in good condition. There are also a lot of shops where you can get used books in large volumes.
“Being Malaysians, we can go to Amazon.com and search for used books, but sometimes they won’t ship to Malaysia,” he adds.
Most of the demand at the site is for fiction books, as the current crop of customers consist mostly of students and those in their 20s.
Basically, customers still consist of those whose lives revolve around the Internet and to whom conducting online transactions is the norm. Hopefully this group will grow gradually as more and more people – of all ages – go online.
Copyright Star Publications (M) Bhd
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