In very good company mentioned along with Books Upstairs, Raven Books, Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar, Charlie Byrne’s, Vibes and Scribes, and No Alibis...
The piece by Sara Keating includes the following very favourable mention of Kennys Bookshop and Kennys.ie:
Kenny’s online and off Kenny’s Bookshop in Liosbán in Galway has used its local strengths to develop a global online presence that has enabled it to continue operating, even expanding, throughout the recession. The business was established in 1940, and online operations became an integral part as early as 1994, when it became the second bookshop in the world to offer an online shopping experience. They were adamant, however, that they would “try to keep the atmosphere of a small independent bookshop in the website”.
The company’s global interest, however, didn’t dilute its local interests. “It actually allowed us to give the smaller books and local books all over Ireland a global presence,” says Des Kenny. The fact that their bookshop offers book-binding services helps them to offer a distinctive local thrust to their catalogue. “We take in self-published books, independently published books, which have a particular problem getting into the international arena,” says Kenny. “What we can do through the website is make them easily available to our customers in Australia or Japan, where they would never get a readership otherwise.”
While the bookshop closed its High Street premises in 2006 – “the costs of maintaining the bookshop were huge” – the company’s online presence enabled it to survive during the next few difficult years. They reopened as a physical shop in 2008 in a retail park on the outskirts of the city, but their business is 85 per cent online and 15 per cent sales in the bricks-and-mortar shop. Even so, they offer the type of commitment and customer service associated with the independent bookshop.
“When people ring, there is someone who will answer the phone, address their problem and make sure that it is taken care of,” says Kenny. “And it will be someone who knows what they are talking about, who knows that books are more than an ISBN. It is paramount that [someone who sells books] should be able to talk about books, not numbers or figures. That is at the heart of our ethos.”
It’s working: this year Kenny’s celebrates its 75th anniversary with the news that it has been shortlisted as Book Retailer of the Year in the Bookseller Industry Awards.
[PHOTO CAPTIONS: Ariane Stachurksi and Shane Crotty of Kennys Bookshop pictured last week. Photo:Dean Kelly / Conor Kenny Surrounded by Book Parcels in Kennys Book Shop 1988]
