Fluff article in the SMH today (Book)dystopia: How Australia’s biggest bookseller went from hero to villain. Title of the article is overtly sensationalist.

Nothing new for followers of this company but thought it was interesting that a discount is provided to Booktopia by publishers due to the high turnover (this may possibly be incorrect, but also not denied by Booktopia in the article).

The market has given Booktopia another big whack today on news of a search commencing for a new CEO and financial update. They're down 25% today and a whopping 85% from 12 month highs. I had a bit of a look at them sometime after listing and credit where it's due - they weren't nearly as bad as I feared! They manage to sell a lot of books, which is kind of the name of the game. Even today's somewhat disappointing update shows they're still growing the top line, just not profitably. For me it came down to the fact that they're selling a commodity in a highly competitive industry - so what was their sustainable differentiator? I couldn't really see one so have steered clear.

Management sold a bunch of shares few weeks ago before downgrading right before Xmas break.

Management lost my trust with this action. Wouldn't be touching this company for a while.

Following is an extract from this mornings release:

BOOKTOPIA GROUP LIMITED (ASX: BKG) CHRISTMAS TRADING UPDATE

Australia’s leading online book retailer Booktopia Group Limited (ASX: BKG) is pleased to provide the following update on Christmas trading and expectations for the first half to 31 December, 2021.

The Group is currently experiencing record daily volumes and from 1 November, 2021, to 21 December, 2021, shipped over 1.49 million units (at an average of more than 40,000 per day), compared to 1.35 million units in the same period last year.

Average daily website visits to booktopia.com.au are also at record levels with the total number of visits from 1 November, 2021, to 22 December, 2021, up 8% to 9.6 million compared to the same period last year.

Average order values in the same period increased 7%.

The volume of orders received over the last month, including during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events, indicate book buyers are continuing to migrate their purchasing to the online environment, even when the economy is not subject to lockdowns and restrictions.

Booktopia web traffic up 22% whilst lockdowns persist. Not yet invested as the chart shows traffic almost as high in February. 

BOOKTOPIA DELIVERS BUMPER FIRST HALF AS DEMAND AND CAPACITY SOAR

•  Revenue up 51.1% to $112.6 million
•  Underlying EBITDA (adjusted for IPO and conversion of preference share costs) up 502.3% to $8.0m
•  A record 4.2 million (H1 20: 3.2 million) orders shipped
•  A 25% increase in Active Customers to 1.71m1
•  Average Annual Spend per Customer2 increased from $103.32 to $123.57
•  Significant increase in distribution capacity and automation to improve scale and efficiency
•  Strong momentum in book industry vertical integration through Booktopia Publishing Services and Booktopia Publishing.
•  Full-year revenue updated forecast at $217.6million with EBITDA (adjusted for IPO and conversion of preference share costs) of $12.9million.