The Bookshelf will receive $23,024 of federal funding from the government’s Canada Book Fund, as a way to help with their online business model.
This new support for booksellers will provide independent sellers two years of support and how best to grow their online sales, in particular, Canadian books, said in a press release.
The pandemic created an increase for online shopping, continued in the release.
“The work that the bookshelf has done through COVID to keep the Canadian story alive in our community and actually expand it in new services and ways of reaching the local community that takes use of online, but also just ingenuity locally,” said MP Lloyd Longfield at the funding announcement.
“And in fact, our bookstores are constantly pushing the limits to open up to a new world for all of us, especially here at The Bookshelf,” he said.
Having The Bookshelf as a local independent bookstore in Guelph, helps support Canadian authors, said Longfield.
Ben Minett, co-owner of The Bookshelf, said online sales are 20 per cent of their sales.
In the federal budget announced in 2021, an investment of $32.1 million, distributed over two years to help increase online sales, will be received in the years 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024.
The $12 million of funding to 180 independent booksellers in Canada will be distributed based on a formula of past sales of Canadian books.
Some of the software to create the formula was created in Guelph, said Longfield. How bookstores track their sales, and inventory is part of the digital background, support programs like these, help, he continued.
Local bookstores have to compete with larger chain bookstores like Indigo or Amazon.
“We’re working on the digital platforms where business is done and reviewing that right now through legislation that’s in the house,” said Longfield.
