TAAZE Launches the Internet Bookstore 2.0

“Sighing in frustration at the sight of growing piles of books” is an affliction that many avaricious readers know all too well. Today book lovers needn’t fear that their treasures will end up orphaned or deemed nearly worthless and sold by the pound. All you need to do is to get on the Internet and enter information about your old books. Not only is it easy, but you can set your own price. It’s completely upending the traditional used book market.

These innovations came with the launching of TAAZE in September of 2010. The site was created by Terry ­Chang, the founder of books.com.tw.

To share the joys of literature, TAAZE invited the author Wang Sheng-hong and his fans to come together for a reading and discussion of The Big Wind Blows.

A graduate of National Taiwan University’s math department who once worked at Bell Labs in the United States, ­Chang, now 53, started books.com.tw in 1995. Due to disagreements with shareholders, he left in 2007 and then lay low for two years. In 2009 he got back in the Internet book business with TAAZE, whose name is derived from the Taiwanese for “reading.” Apart from selling new books, TAAZE has set its sights on the used and remaindered book markets, aiming to create a completely new Internet shopping center.

The more books readers collect, ­Chang explains, the more they face the problem of figuring out what to do with them all. But traditional channels for selling used books are inconvenient. What’s more, used-book stores dictate the prices, so it’s hard to get a good price for books. Consequently, in addition to selling new books, TAAZE also decided to enter the used book market.

­Chang explains that selling used books poses different challenges in terms of logistics, price setting and warehousing from selling new books. In order to make selling used books more convenient, TAAZE has worked with convenience store chains and their partnering logistics companies to offer sellers the option of dropping books off at convenience stores.

In addition to reducing logistical demands on sellers, TAAZE also doesn’t dictate the price to sellers, like used-book stores do. Instead, it allows the seller to set the price, and then collects a standard commission of 35% after the sale. All the seller has to do is turn over the books. TAAZE handles all the back-end management, marketing and display.

A Ms Lin, who has quite a few books at home, has experienced for herself the convenience of TAAZE. She recalls how she used to have to lug bags of books to used-book stores. Not only did she not get much for the hauls, but the stores were quite particular about what they took. They wouldn’t buy everything she had. TAAZE both streamlines the logistical process by coming to her and allows her to set the price. It’s more like she’s the bookstore.

Now, before listing books for sale, she looks at similar books on offer to set a sales strategy. As soon as one of her books sells, the website immediately informs her. “It typically takes about two days to sell a book,” she says. “That’s a lot faster than I had thought!”

Working to meet the needs of buyers and sellers, TAAZE has also blazed a new trail in the book market by allowing those looking for out-of-print books to issue requests for particular titles.

What’s more, TAAZE has innovated with “book videos” that allow readers to view for themselves the condition of a book, thereby reducing conflicts when buyers and sellers have different views about a book’s condition.

Over the last four years, TAAZE has amassed videos for about 200,000 book titles. Beginning in 2014, TAAZE extended its video service to new books, giving readers a look at the interior design of books so that purchasers no longer complain that they can’t get a sense of the full book online. “Even Amazon, the world’s largest Internet seller of books, doesn’t have these features,” says ­Chang.

The fact that he was creating an Internet bookstore for the second time, says ­Chang, “made me want to make TAAZE very different!” Consequently, in addition to offering a platform for used books, TAAZE was also the first Internet bookstore to give consumers a chance to read parts of more than 10,000 books online, and it overcame immense logistical challenges to offer delivery “within three hours.”

With the rise of social media websites, TAAZE created its ZEKEA platform, inviting food and lifestyle guru Yeh Yi­lan, graphic designer Aaron Nieh and other luminaries to establish their own channels. On ZEKEA, TAAZE users share their thoughts on books and make suggestions about what to read. It brings them together in social exchange.

TAAZE’s new platform for selling used books has completely upended the traditional used-book market. The photo shows PNP Used Books’ store.

Immediately after being established, TAAZE worked to define itself differently from its competitors. ­Chang explains that although the name in the Taiwanese vernacular has hip and youthful connotations, behind the scenes the company has a very serious-sounding official name: the Xue Si Xing Digital Marketing Company. “Xue si xing” means study, thought and action.

“In knowledge industries, what is ultimately most important: learning, thinking or action?” ­Chang believes that book knowledge is something that even poor people should be able to attain. And in addition to gaining knowledge, one must also reflect upon that knowledge and then bring it to action. “With reading,” says ­Chang, “the amount isn’t what’s important. The key thing is broadening your horizons.”

Embracing such a philosophy, TAAZE demonstrates a much deeper sense of cultural reflection than most websites. It has held various thematic book exhibitions on serious topics such as human rights and democracy. It has also sponsored lectures of the sort often held in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, such as “Protecting the Soil: Listening to Our Natural Landscapes and Field Crops” and “Creative Report Writing.” And in cooperation with community colleges and other institutions TAAZE has also sponsored field trips, moving beyond its virtual platform to the real world. “What a bricks-and-mortar bookstore can do, we can do too!” says Chang.

TAAZE’s lively and innovative methods have pushed the growth of the used-book industry. Established just four years, the site has already sold 1 million books, and it maintains an inventory of 500,000 volumes. It sells a book every two minutes. The numbers of its sellers and buyers are steadily growing. Currently, it has 800,000 members and more than 80,000 sellers. At the same time, the synergy of having old and new books on the same website has helped to increase TAAZE’s sales. Nearly 70% of the earnings going to TAAZE’s sellers are used to buy new books. It’s helping to create a virtuous cycle of increased sales for both used and new books.

From the buying and selling of books and the hosting of literary conversations online, to participation in activities in the “real world,” TAAZE has created a completely different second-generation Internet bookstore, letting reading become a true part of people’s lives.