Someone who types “online bookshop” into a search engine usually has a title in mind, or an author, or just a cover they saw somewhere. A good bookshop gets them to the book from wherever they start: the author’s name typed without diacritics, half a title, the ISBN from the back cover.
Bookshops start thinking about a new store when the catalogue has outgrown what the old site can carry: thousands of titles uploaded by hand, authors spelt three different ways, sold-out books that still show as “in stock”. Publishers sell mostly through distributors and want a place of their own, with their entire list of titles and their house authors.
The book record: author, publisher, collection, ISBN
A book is not a product with a “name” and a “description”. It has an author, a translator, a publisher, a collection, a binding type and an ISBN, the international code that identifies a particular edition. Each becomes a separate field, and author, publisher and collection become lists in their own right, so that from any book you can reach “all books by this author”.
The edition matters: the same novel can exist in paperback, in hardback and as a pocket edition, each with its own ISBN, price and stock. We link them together on the same page.
Distributors and publishers send Excel, CSV or XML files, sometimes in ONIX, the international standard for describing books. The import brings them into the same shape and uses the ISBN as the key, so that a book received from two sources does not appear twice.
Search that finds a half-typed title
Standard WordPress search looks in the title and the description and does not forgive typing mistakes. We add search by author, publisher, collection and ISBN, tolerance of typing mistakes and of missing diacritics (“tanase” finds “Tănase”) and suggestions shown as the person types.
For large catalogues we use a separate search engine, such as Meilisearch, Typesense or Elasticsearch: specialised software that ranks results by relevance. For a few thousand titles, a well-built search running directly on the database can be enough. We collect the searches that return nothing in a report, so that you find out which titles people ask for and you do not have.
Online bookshop with pre-orders, author pages and recommendations
A pre-order is the sale of an announced book that has not yet come off the press. The page shows the estimated publication date, and the order stays in a separate status until the print run arrives. Two things are decided at the start: whether payment is taken at order or at dispatch, and what happens when the same basket also holds books that are in stock.
The author page brings together the photograph, a short introduction and all the titles in the catalogue. Many readers search Google by the author’s name, not by the title.
We build recommendations first from safe rules: by the same author, from the same collection, in the same genre. “Readers also bought” makes sense only when there are enough orders.
- Pre-order: estimated date, its own order status, automatic email on publication.
- “Notify me when it’s back”: for sold-out titles that are being reprinted.
- Series and bundles: all the volumes of a series, bought together.
Small parcels, cheap delivery and ebooks
A book is a small parcel, and the cost of delivery weighs heavily in the decision to buy. We connect the store to couriers and to parcel locker networks, often the cheaper option for a single volume.
Ebooks can be an option on the same page. The file (EPUB or PDF) is delivered automatically after payment, through a protected link. Copy protection has its limits: the practical option is to mark the file with the buyer’s details, which discourages sharing without being able to prevent it. The rights to sell in electronic format are clarified with the publisher, and the VAT rate for the printed book and for the ebook with your accountant.
Loading a catalogue of thousands of titles
The store runs on WooCommerce, the commerce platform for WordPress, with a custom theme and an import written for your files. For Google we add structured data, markup that describes the book: title, author, ISBN, price, availability.
If you also have a physical bookshop, stock has to come from your stock management software, otherwise you will sell online the copy that has just left the shelf. How often it can be synchronised depends on what that software allows.
- Data sources: who they come from, in what format, how often.
- Cleaning: authors unified, publishers and collections without duplicates.
- Structure and design: the book record, the author page, the filters by genre, publisher and collection.
- A trial import of a few hundred titles, then of the whole catalogue.
- Payments, couriers, invoicing and test orders, including a pre-order.
Frequently asked questions
Can I also sell books I do not have in stock?
Yes, if the distributor gives you a stock file that is kept up to date. The titles appear marked “to order”, with a longer delivery time stated clearly on the page.
Do I need a custom store for a few dozen titles?
Not necessarily. For a small list of titles, a standard WooCommerce setup or a subscription-based store platform can be enough. Custom work is justified when the catalogue, the search or the imports go beyond what the ready-made options offer.
How long does it take before the store can take orders?
It depends mostly on the state of the data: a clean catalogue, with ISBNs and covers, imports quickly, while one pieced together from several files needs cleaning. We give an estimate once we have seen the files.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.