Case Study: IDEA Books achieves rapid sales and lean operations with BlackBerry

Vintage book dealers turn shared passion into a high-speed business with help from BlackBerry Messenger

IDEA Books is a small UK-based dealer of vintage fashion, photography, design and architecture books run by two founders who needed to buy and sell rare titles very quickly across outlets in London, Paris and the U.S. Their challenge was matching scarce books with the right buyers, checking prices on the spot, coordinating with suppliers and reporting sales — all while keeping the operation lean and avoiding a large staff.

Using BlackBerry smartphones, BBM and apps like Twitter and the web browser, IDEA Books communicates instantly with suppliers and customers, verifies prices in real time and opens sales reports on the go. The result is faster, more confident buying and selling (they often show at least one book per hour via BBM), live sales updates across countries and a business that two people can run with the efficiency of a much larger team.

IDEA Books

David Owen

IDEA Books