This month, Andrew celebrates 30 years of selling books in Melbourne. From humble origins selling two boxes of books found under his parents house, to a veritable empire, with two stores, a successful online store and several innovations on the way. Over the past 30 years Andrew has made books available to everyone at low prices through various locations, a pioneer in street-trading in Melbourne, sold books to customers from all walks of life and successfully ran an open bookshop three metres from global booksellers Borders.
Today Andrew operates two stores, a successful online bookshop and has an exciting vision involving franchising mobile bookshops around the country with the goal of being Australia’s most innovative bookseller. It is hard to believe that all this began with two boxes of old books Andrew found under his parents house in early 1977. He sold those books at the Wantirna Trash and Treasure Market for the princely sum of $12.
Over the next four years Andrew continued to sell second hand books at various markets around Melbourne. Not having a car didn’t stop him from procuring great stock, Andrew would often hitchhike to the homes of people who had responded to his ads looking for second-hand books.
Andrew has many fond memories of his time at the markets, “I remember selling books on modern Australian art to Clifford Pugh, and having his wife Marlene let out a scream when she came across a portrait of herself in one of them. On another occasion I was at the markets at Latrobe University when ‘Men at Work’ were playing one of their first gigs in the union building”
In 1981 Andrew opened up his first shop, in Ringwood, and began his push for street retailing. Andrew recalls, “In our first week we put several tables outside the shop, which attracted a lot of customers, but at the time councils didn’t allow retailers or coffee shops to have tables on the footpath, so we were forced to shut them down.” It was the same story in 1983, when Andrew opened a store in Ivanhoe, where a council officer had told him “You’ll never be allowed tables outside the store.” This didn’t deter Andrew, and after repeated requests was granted the first street trading licence for retailing goods in Banyule. Over the next 23 years Andrew has seen an explosion in the level of street trading across Melbourne.
It was this same ‘never say die’ attitude that saw Andrew open a store in Lygon Court after repeated knock-backs from centre management. “We started with just two tables of books and over the next 15 years built them into a thriving, browser friendly and very popular business.”
Even the arrival of global bookselling giants Borders in Carlton didn’t deter Andrew. In 2003 Borders opened a superstore just three meters from Andrew’s open shop in Lygon Court. “They expected us to last a week, we stayed four years” Andrew says, “In the end we only moved out because our lease had expired and centre management wouldn’t allow us sign a new lease, claiming they were going to redevelop the site. Ten days later Borders moved in with tables of discount books.” Undeterred, on the same day that the Carlton store closed, Andrew opened a second store in the popular Ivanhoe trading strip.
Over the years Andrew’s passion for selling books has increased and he has recently developed an innovative mobile bookshop, which will be rolling out onto the streets of Melbourne in the coming months. He is also looking to franchise this idea to provide franchisees and people around Australia with an opportunity to buy and sell books in this unique browser friendly way.
