WorkPoint and zhAke Genius launch online bookstore

 Lawan Ngawbenjakun managing director of WorkPoint Publishing, yesterday said the company in the initial phase had invested Bt20 million in technology infrastructure, including Web architecture, servers and back-office system.
   zhAke.com will be officially available for online use by bookworms by January, with titles supplied by between 30 and 50 publishers.
   The site will offer a wide range of payment methods, from credit and debit cards to ATMs and bank counters, as well as via PayPal.
   The company hopes to generate revenue of Bt70 million from the online edutainment project by the end of next year, with most of the income expected to come from book sales and the remainder from e-books and entertainment products such as DVDs and music.
   Phiphat Laeadon, managing director of zhAke Genius, said the size of the overall Thai books market was about Bt20 billion per year, while that for selling books vie online stores was just Bt700 million.
   With the number of Internet users in Thailand growing at 35 per cent each year, there is a great opportunity for growth and the company aims to gain 10 per cent of the Bt700-million market in the first year of operation.
   He added that the first phase of zhAke.com would provide both paper and electronic books, after which it would also offer products such as DVDs and music.
   “Before joining with WorkPoint Publishing, we developed and provided an iPad bookstore application called zhAke app, which was launched in the middle of this year. It has about 50,000 downloads, and 70 to 80 per cent of them access the app every day. The app offers free books and magazines,” said Phiphat.
   He added that the tablet bookstore market was however very small when compared to online bookstores, which can be accessed by many more people.
   There are more than 20 million Internet users in Thailand, but only 200,000 tablet devices in the market. Therefore, zhAke Genuis decided to turn its focus to developing an online bookstore on the Internet in a joint venture with WorkPoint Publishing, which he said shared the same business goal.