While all books are wonderful, pre-loved books are special. For all book lovers, the fact that the stories within have made an interesting journey to get to you is incredible. Moreover pre-loved books allow to you read more while saving you a ton of money and books are all about sharing, aren’t they? We tell you more about Bookends, the digital start- by Mompreneurs Grace and Somia.
It’s time to revive our love for reading! As kids grown up these days, they hardly ever read books and are glued to their phones or devices and to social media apps. Our brains have a “use it or lose it” policy, just like our muscles. In other words, if we don’t exercise our minds regularly, our cognitive abilities may decline. However, reading every day helps us concentrate, improves our memory and can keep our brain strong and focused.
Bookends buys and sells pre-loved books across the Emirates. The idea of Bookends was born from the need to renew both families’ private collections as the kids grew older. Omar and Adam, Grace’s kids, and Zoha and Abdullah, Somia’s, were all avid readers who quickly finished the books at hand and were always ready to discover new ones.
Whether financially or environmentally, purchasing fresh books is not the ideal solution.
Thus Bookends.ae is a platform that allows readers to sell pre-loved books and also buy other
ones at affordable prices.
With more than 15000 titles and daily additions, Bookends offers a large variety of books in
several languages to better suit the diversity of the UAE market. Several genres and authors can be found on their website that is user friendly and mobile devices’ responsive.
Buyers can browse the website and buy books by simply adding them to the cart. They offer cash on delivery and credit card payment for the customers’ convenience.
Sellers can simply leave their books in one of their designated drop-off locations where they fill in a form with their desired price. Bookends will add a service charge to that and post the books on their platform. Once the books are sold, sellers will either receive the amount in cash or exchange for credits to buy other books.
Bookends is also helping schools refresh their libraries by inviting them to be sellers on their website. By selling their existing books and purchasing new ones from our platform, schools are thus able to revamp their libraries in a cost efficient manner.
Storage Facility.
They store all books that are on the platform. If the book is not sold within 3 months, the seller can either donate it or retract it.
• Bookends’ collaboration with Sprout.ae, also a women-led business, allowed them to place
donation boxes in their food booth at expo 2020. All sales’ proceeds went to yet another women-led charity, Yanni Animal Welfare.
• Bookends has taken part in several markets this year including the Ripe market, the little
market at Habtoor and the ‘down to earth’ one at the Jameel Art center.
• Bookends is in the process of setting up shelves in cafes and recreation centers across the
UAE to give access to every resident to preloved books.
• In just over a year, bookends have found new homes for almost 50 thousand books and built a community of over 500 sellers. They offer books in 13 different languages to cater to the expat population of the UAE.
You can reach them by email at bookendsae@gmail.com or call or WhatsApp 0503621164
Or browse at www.bookends.ae