This is a sponsored post paid for by Edelweiss

In this blog post, Amanda Murphy, Director of Marketing for Edelweiss, interviews Ruth Bradstreet, Director of Business Development for Europe, and Dan Fridd, Client Success Manager for Europe. They discuss how Edelweiss is bringing their established book platform to market, sell, discover and order new titles to publishers and booksellers in the UK. 

Learn more about the platform’s growing momentum over the past year, how Dan and Ruth anticipate increasing adoption in the months ahead, and how the game is swiftly transforming as more publishers and bookshops continue to see the value of Edelweiss in saving time and transforming workflow. 

How has Edelweiss’ place in the UK market evolved over the past year? 

Ruth: We’ve really become part of the landscape of the UK book industry at this point. The growth in users, interest, and advocacy has reached a place where we can say we’ve truly ‘arrived’ in the UK. The platform becomes more useful the more publishers and booksellers are participating in it, which drives user engagement. We’re seeing this organic networking beginning to transform Edelweiss in the UK into an ecosystem for the book business that has existed in the US for many years. People frequently come to us wanting to know more about how they can be involved. 

What do you think the synergy between UK publishers and UK bookshops on Edelweiss will be like a year from now?

Ruth: The adoption by major publishers means that the coverage of new titles being published in the UK is increasing to the point where it just makes sense to participate in a single platform for buying, which increases the value to distributors and small and mid-sized publishers and their sales teams in particular. 

It’s an exciting time to be doing this with the post-covid landscape for bookselling looking healthy, and we’d love to play our part in supporting that by removing friction from the business-to-business link of the supply chain. The whole industry and culture benefits when booksellers become more efficient, so that indies can compete by focusing on their work as curators and leaders in literacy and community. 

What is Edelweiss’ commitment to maintaining and establishing new relationships with bookshops? 

Dan: It’s an ear to the ground approach largely. We have excellent relations with key book industry partners like the stock control systems that new booksellers are pointed towards by the Booksellers Association. Their training programs always mention Edelweiss as a key bookselling tool as well. As an organization, we send out monthly newsletters and bi-weekly title highlights. Booksellers can also opt-in to regular Analytics emails. Plus, publishers themselves are sending out catalogues from Edelweiss. When a new shop opens, we offer support and run a connections program with publishers. We attend every bookseller event we’re able to get to. Our Facebook group receives regular updates on new catalogues and developments in Edelweiss.

How has adoption by bookshops changed over the past year?

Ruth: We’ve seen a significant boost in the number of bookshops and activity in the last year or so. While attracting more users is meaningful, we’ve also seen more engagement and activity from users as well. Many more booksellers have started using Edelweiss to select new titles, either in subbing sessions with their rep, or aside from that. Some booksellers that already used Edelweiss for one function, such as ePOS analytics, have broadened their usage to buying, email marketing, or both. Meanwhile, booksellers that had not engaged with the system at all jumped on board so they could sell more and work more efficiently in general. In recent months, some of the adoption is due to reps from major publishers embracing Edelweiss as their tool to present to and collaborate with accounts. 

Can you give a few examples of how Edelweiss has changed the game for bookshops? 

Dan: The variety of use cases is massive, but I can think of a few examples that stand out. One is Mr. B’s Emporium using Edelweiss as a discussion tool about their subscription boxes. Another is how Rossiter Books relies on the Edelweiss Analytics product to keep track of their five stores and where gaps exist in key titles. Resident Music, a record shop, can filter out all except the books on music they would stock. 

As Edelweiss’ hallmark platform continues to increase in adoption across the UK, so do its other products such as Edelweiss Designer. A game changer for the creative process, Edelweiss Designer allows publishers to design custom catalogs and collections using their own user-created templates. 

Is Edelweiss transforming your book world? We want to hear about it! Send your comments about Edelweiss to marketing@abovethetreeline.com. You may also reach us for questions at this email address.

Ruth Bradstreet has worked as a bookseller, book buyer, for an ePOS vendor, and for a large wholesaler in the United States. For the last 16 years she’s been with Above the Treeline, the makers of Edelweiss, and as the company grew from those early days she did a bit of everything,  except programming, thankfully. She moved home to Scotland in 2019 to work on launching Edelweiss in the UK.  She is passionate about helping booksellers and publishers use technology to make their lives easier. 

Dan Fridd started his career in bookselling with Bertram Books supporting and developing their POS systems and training booksellers. He helped open over 100 new bookshops during his time there. In 2019 Dan helped his wife Leanne open their own bookshop, Bookbugs and Dragon Tales in Norwich. In 2020, Dan joined the Edelweiss UK team. Dan is incredibly proud to have won a BA Bookseller Hero award in 2021 for his work supporting Bookshops during Covid. As the Client Success Manager for Europe, Dan spearheads Edelweiss growth in new markets, not just in Europe, but also much further afield. In his spare time, Dan is a founding member of The Common Lot Theatre company. He is regularly seen in large scale outdoor social history musical theatre productions and has also performed in Films, with The RSC, and is Captain Canary for Norwich City Football Club.