ef executive David Nenke.  “The new fulfilment centre will go live at the end of August, which will set us up for the important Christmas period,” Nenke told Inside Retail.  “It’ll get us through building up that performance, getting it up to speed, and receiving and building up our inventory as we head into that holiday.” Despite former CEO Tony Nash’s contentious exit last year from the company he co-founded, Nenke said that he doesn’t plan to deviate from the playbook.  “Once I started looking at the strategy, I realised that what they were doing was actually right,” Nenke explained.  “Coming in, I wanted to be able to stand up and unveil a big vision for the future, but really, we’re just continuing what they were doing, and executing on that.” Nash remains on Booktopia’s board as a non-executive director.  Customer-first Booktopia’s ‘next-gen fulfilment centre has been a long time coming, having been announced last year, and has always been set to play a key role in driving the business’ future growth.  Following the significant growth that Booktopia experienced throughout the pandemic, Nenke noted that the business is once again focusing on its core audience: Australian book lovers. Part of this is due to the return to bricks-and-mortar retail, with more people buying books impulsively while out-and-about, rather than online. It’s also  due to a deeper understanding of Booktopia’s main customers – both who they are and how they shop.  According to Nenke, Booktopia’s average customer is over 50, lives on the eastern seaboard, and spends around $300 a year on books. And, in general, they are very loyal.  “We’re in a good place, where customers are recommending [Booktopia] to people, and what we need to do is to repay that loyalty,” Nenke said.  The business aims to improve its on-site recommendations based on the books that each individual  customer has previously read. And, because the business has such a large customer database, it can also develop recommendations based on what other customers have read and enjoyed.  “If you buy from us four times a year, that’s okay, because we’ve got many other customers that buy more often than that,” Nenke said.  “And chances are that if you read a book and like it, there are other people that have read it and liked it and have gone on to read and like similar things that we can then recommend.” Back to school The business isn’t just focusing on its loyal customers, however. It’s also looking to capture new ones.  One way Booktopia is doing this is through its growing textbook and education offer, having partnered with student portal Zookal in 2021, and purchased university-focused bookstore Co-op in 2020. Booktopia’s education offer stalled throughout the pandemic, as overseas students fell away, but has started seeing a resurgence in the past year. “I’m interested in the education space, partly because the demographic of the [customer] is generally younger – they’re in university so they’ll likely be a higher-than-average income earlier, and once they get out into the world they’ve already had experience buying from Booktopia,” Nenke said. “We can acquire that customer when they’re still buying textbooks, and it’s a good opportunity to begin that [customer] journey.” The next chapter Like many retail leaders, Nenke is cautious about the current economic climate, but he is confident that Booktopia will have a strong Christmas as customers cut back on unnecessary spending.  To Nenke, tighter purse strings means fewer gift baskets and more books.  “I’m expecting a better Christmas than we saw last year, but it’s hard to tell from an economics perspective whether people will have more or less money to spend this year,” Nenke said.  “But what I can tell you is that when times get a bit tougher, demand for books grows, because they do take longer to consume than watching a movie or a TV show. “So we just want to make sure that we’ve got the inventory, and we’re really responding to customers and making sure we’re delivering.”