It wasn't the audiobook company itself that actively sought a partner to begin selling physical books. The initiative instead came from the other side, when Sweden Buyersclub saw an opportunity to expand its B2B business.
The result is a completely separate e-commerce platform under the name Storytel Books. The new online store officially launched in Sweden yesterday morning.
Are there plans to expand the presence to other markets?
Such potential plans are for Storytel to comment on themselves, says Emil Henriksson.
The path to launch, however, has involved challenges, not least in collaborating with a large organization where many different departments need to be involved in decisions.
Storytel is a large and professional organization with many departments that need to be involved in several decisions. This places high demands on communication.
Technically, the bookstore is run on a modular platform that Sweden Buyersclub has built internally. This means that the store has a common core that can handle several different online stores in various industries.
Each store has its own customer experience and its own customizations, but benefits from the same basic functions, says Emil Henriksson and continues:
We build ourselves to be able to control development and adapt the entire flow to how we and our customers work. We have built and manage our own systems such as CRM, inventory management, support and price analysis in the platform itself, that is, parts that e-commerce companies normally have externally.
AI populates the digital bookshelves
Another part of the internal work has been about streamlining processes that otherwise require a lot of manual effort, where new technology now plays a crucial role. So, to manage Storytel's large range of titles, AI is used, something that was implemented already at the drawing board when new features were to be developed.
It allows us to go faster from idea to test and finished function, says Emil Henriksson.
Emil provides a concrete example to illustrate how it works:
We use AI for, among other things, the selection of books for thematic product carousels. We can specify a theme, for example "personal finance" or "feel good", and then the system uses AI to find and rank relevant titles based on the books' descriptions and a wealth of other dynamic data, he says.
This means that the online store largely manages itself if a product suddenly sells out.
Then it can be replaced by the next title in the selection. This reduces the manual work of creating and updating relevant book selections, says Emil Henriksson.
Capacity for billions
Now that the platform and operation of Storytel Books are up and running, the question arises as to how the company's new B2B leg affects Sweden Buyersclub's original core business. Taking on major assignments for external corporate customers, however, does not involve any plans to deprioritize the company's own consumer business.
We see that the B2B investment strengthens our consumer business. Larger aggregated volumes provide economies of scale and better negotiating conditions. Development and learnings from different collaborations will also benefit Buyersclub's own customers, says Emil Henriksson.
To manage the flow of goods, the company works with a logistics model where most of the range remains with the suppliers until the customer places their order.
Our turnover rate within crossdocking is only a few hours, so the delivery time is an average of three and a half days, despite avoiding inventory risk, he says.
However, there are plans to expand its own range and stock bestsellers in the future, in order to further reduce delivery times. On the personnel side, ongoing recruitment is taking place within logistics as volumes increase, while the need for personnel outside the warehouse is assessed as limited.
Sweden Buyersclub has also not closed the door to more customers who need help with operations.
We are already having active discussions with other potential partners, says Emil Henriksson.
In the coming year, the e-commerce company has its sights set on aggressive growth. The goal is to future-proof the logistics center for enormous volumes, which will put the organization to the test in terms of flexibility. For Emil Henriksson, this year's single biggest milestone is clear.
To succeed in scaling up operations while improving both profitability and customer experience. Our premises in Västerås can handle a couple of billion in turnover, quickly reaching that with improved profitability and increased customer satisfaction requires lightning-fast handling of unforeseen events, says Emil Henriksson and concludes:
Growing pains are a bigger challenge than many think.