FECTAC LEVEL 5 – WATERBOTTLE

I looked into Kennys and Eason properly.

Both of them can offer free shipping because of scale, not because they’re doing anything magic.

Kennys.ie has been going 85 years, they stock about 2 million books (new, secondhand, rare, antiquarian), and they sell through Amazon, ABEbooks, Alibris AND their own site at the same time.

Free shipping is subsidised by huge order volume, plus they make good margin on rare and collectible books which covers the cheap bestsellers. They also have an art gallery and a library/collector services division on top of the bookshop.

Eason is a big general retailer with shops all over the country, plus stationery and gifts alongside books. Their free delivery only kicks in above a €10 spend, it’s not free on every order. It’s really a basket size incentive funded by their overall retail scale.

Mayo Books can’t copy either of these models. With 30 staff and one category at low volume, there’s no way to absorb €5 a shipment the way they do.

Are Kennys and Eason are not niche like Mayo Books. They’re general booksellers selling everything to everyone worldwide. Mayo Books is genuinely niche, books about Mayo and by Mayo authors, a much smaller market. That’s not a bad thing, but it means we’ve been comparing to the wrong competitors. mayobooks was never going to beat Kennys or Eason on cheap and fast shipping.

Here’s where I think the real growth is:

1. Stop competing on shipping cost, fix the shipping economics instead. Set a minimum order value for free shipping, e.g. spend €25+ and it ships free. That raises the average order value instead of losing margin on single book orders. Almost every serious Irish bookseller does this, not blanket free shipping.

2. Bundle books to raise order value. Mayo history collections, gift sets. One €5 shipping cost spread across 3 books instead of 1.

3. Push the higher margin, harder to replace stock. Local history, out of print, signed, locally published titles have much better margins than trade paperbacks, and Amazon/Kennys don’t stock them anyway.

4. Go after the international and diaspora market. Mayo has huge appeal for Irish-Americans and Irish-Australians researching heritage. Higher value international orders absorb postage far better than a €15 domestic order, and it’s a market Kennys and Eason aren’t specifically chasing.

5. This is where Castle Books comes in. mayobooks.ie as a standalone niche shop has a ceiling. Castle Books selling general books, cards, and gifts is the piece that could actually compete online with the broader retailers, because it’s not limited to a niche catalogue. That’s the bigger web/SEO opportunity.

Happy to put this into a proper one page plan if useful, shipping and pricing fix first, then bundling, then the Castle Books side.