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Press Release: 26.09.2018


World of Books launches faster, mobile friendly e-commerce platform

With the majority of its sales now on mobile devices, World of Books has launched a faster e-commerce platform to serve customers quicker. As the largest seller of used books online in the UK, with an inventory of over 3 million books, World of Books continues to go from strength to strength. This week’s relaunch of their UK website (wob.com) on flexible commerce platform commercetools, lays the foundations for future growth and scale of the business internationally, with a focus on developing their own selling platforms.

World of Books’ vision is to be the leading seller of used books globally, while helping people to reuse and recycle for less through innovation and technology. A vision that positions investment in technology and the customer experience at the forefront.

Their migration from an open-source commerce solution to a cloud-native and API-first commerce platform significantly improves World of Books’ website speed and usability. An updated navigation and streamlined checkout journey also lend themselves to a more refined customer experience, helping them to find and purchase used books faster.

Earlier this year, World of Books relaunched their Australian website using the same API-first architecture, which saw site speeds and conversion increase in excess of 25%.

The new commercetools platform, combined with their own bespoke software, enables World of Books to manage an ever-growing inventory of books and react in real time to the market, ensuring the widest range of titles and best prices are offered. In a competitive used books market, these factors are key to attracting new and repeat customers.

Patrik Oqvist CMO of World of Books said, “We are a circular economy, for profit business that supports charities and protects the planet by enabling more goods to be reused. The core focus of the business is to develop wob.com and continue to improve the service we offer to our customers. Our site launches in the UK and Australia are an exciting milestone in our journey that allows us to significantly grow our positive impact and our business both in the UK and internationally.”
 

Notes for Editors

World of Books is a Sussex-based company that sells quality used books at competitive prices to millions of customers worldwide each year. Established by a group of dedicated book lovers, over the past 10 years World of Books has seen its inventory grow from 1,000 books to over 3 million in stock. We are pioneers in the re-use and recycling of unwanted books, recycling about 70 million books each year, equivalent to 500,000 trees.

World of Books purchases significant volumes of donated books from UK charities – boosting revenues for these good causes and saving them waste disposal costs. This business model has generated over £12m for UK charities in the last 5 years. The core focus of the business is to develop wob.com and continue to improve the service we offer to our customers.

The World of Books Group also includes three other trading companies as follows:

  • Ziffit.com is a free and easy to use website and app to sell unwanted books, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and games for cash. Up to half-a-million items a month have been sold on the site since it launched in October 2013, making it one of the largest trade-in sites in the UK;

  • World of Rare Books specialises in rare, antiquarian and vintage books, including first editions of all genres;

  • World of Buzz, a proprietary software company, developing products including charity scanning, helping charity partners increase revenue by selling online.

Over the past couple of years World of Books has gone from strength to strength, winning investment from the prestigious Bridges Sustainable Growth Fund in 2016. With this support they are now one of the largest sellers of used books in Europe and continue to be one of the fastest growing companies in the UK.

In 2018 their list of awards included the Queen’s Award for International Trade, Sussex Super Growth Business Awards, FTSE 100 Companies to inspire Britain, FT Future 100 UK and Sunday Times Profit Track and International Track awards.

For more information, contact:

Amy Greenacre | [email protected] | T: 01903 507544