Who doesn’t like a good anti-Amazon story?

Bookshop.org launched in the US and UK as an “ethical” alternative to Amazon, allowing independent booksellers to create a virtual store front. If someone bought a book specifically from one of the participating stores, that bookseller would receive 30% of the cover price from the sale. When a sale was made and not linked to a specific bookseller, 10% of the cover price would go into a pot that was split equally amongst all of the booksellers.

When this platform launched, it was greeted with great public enthusiasm from independent bookstores, publishers, authors, and readers – including myself. Finally, here was a model to help independent businesses sell online.

Complaints from booksellers have been growing. Bookstores would normally make between 43 and 50 percent on a book, much more than the 30 percent offered by bookshop.org. Tamsin Roswell, a bookseller at Kenilworth Books says the platform is “attempting to homogenise all indie bookshops.” The biggest fear seems to be that rather than stealing customers from Amazon, the site is stealing customers away from the independents themselves.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that bookshop.org’s heart is in the right place. They applied for B corporation certification, a designation for businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental “purpose”. As Andy Hunter, CEO of the website says, they are pushing for “a sea-change in consumer behaviour that protects independent bookstores.”

It’s not the intentions of bookshop.org that bother me, but rather their ownership model.

I firmly believe that the long term needs of independents are best met through a cooperative model where ownership and responsibility is shared equally by members under the principle of “one share, one vote”.

Under a cooperative structure, independents would be in control of their own destiny. The competition and tension amongst independents who previously were allies would be removed. The voice of each independent would be preserved as would the individual strengths each brings to the table.

Cooperatives need to stop shying away from technology and help their members sell. Software platforms designed for purchasing cooperatives, such as the LBMX Marketplace provide a National Accounts module designed to help B2B sellers compete online. Coops such as Home Hardware in Canada have embraced online B2C selling on behalf of their members.

So while it was understandable that supporters of independent businesses, such as myself, were excited by the potential “ethical alternative” to Amazon, we forgot to look at it from the perspective of the independent. We forgot that the cooperative or purchasing cooperaive model continues to be the best model to support independent businesses.

At the end of the day, “independence” is what makes independent bookstores and other businesses special. Any solution supporting independents needs to keep this in mind.