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For the past decade , three company have been build full - fledged e - book ecosystem with devices , apps and digital bookstores all working perfectly together — Amazon , Rakuten and a midget caller calledVivlio .
While Amazon ’s Kindle is the clear loss leader and Rakuten ’s Kobo the obvious challenger , Vivlio has been building an heart-to-heart European choice to these two technical school giants . And it raise that you may compete with technical school giants with a squad of 35 as long as you have a distinct strategy with unlike goals .
Vivlio was comprise in 2011 , just a year after Kobo released its first e - book lector . At first , Vivlio was a side project fromDecitre , a bookstore chain from the Lyon orbit . Just like Barnes & Noble in the U.S. , Decitre wanted to begin selling e - books so that it would speak all your reading needs .
But Vivlio choose a different track as it immediately adjudicate that it wanted to establish a bookstore - agnostic e - Bible platform . Cultura , one of the biggest bookseller in France , became a shareholder .
“ The idea was to make a European coalition — well , Gallic at first , but we ’re attempt to make it European now — a coalition of companies with similar interest , booksellers and retailers of cultural goods , around a French and then European answer , ” Vivlio CEO David Dupré tell me .
Turning bookshops into e-book sellers
Bookshops existed long before the inception of Amazon . But Amazon did n’t mate with existing bookstores to deliver al-Qur’an to your home . While Amazon has managed to capture a large market plowshare of book sale , bookshops still exist .
In some commonwealth , including many European countries , fix book priceshave even helped self-governing bookstores persist in business . That ’s why the book industry is still a extremely fragmented diligence in Europe , with large atomic number 99 - DoC retail merchant , handsome chain bookstores and independent shops .
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From the very beginning , Vivlio bet that the book industriousness would remain fragmented — build yet - another - Amazon would n’t be a winning move . Vivlio sign a handful of partnerships with belittled and big chain bookstores so that it could run their e - script stores for them .
In France , in addition to Decitre and Cultura , Vivlio has also partnered with Decitre ’s baby ship’s company Furet du Nord and Leclerc . Vivlio is also work with the leading chain bookstores in Belgium and Spain , Standaard Boekhandel / Club and Casa del Libro , respectively . So if you ’ve buy an Es - book on one of those site , Vivlio handled that transaction on behalf of those retailers .
“ The fundamental principle of the Vivlio model , which really sets us apart from Kobo , for good example , which has a partnership with Fnac , is that we guarantee two thing to our partner . First , the customer remains their customer . This mean that the customer account is a bookseller ’s customer accounting , not a Vivlio customer account , ” Dupré tell .
“ Second , a very large share of the sales generated by the Vivlio ecosystem go to the bookseller . In other words , we leave most of the margin to the reseller . . . That ’s the contractual , effectual and useable promise , ” he added .
User-friendly e-books
While Vivlio only hire a pocket-size cut of meat on each e - record sales agreement , it still represents the bulk of the company ’s revenue . But selling vitamin E - books is one thing . You have to provide way to study these Es - ledger after that .
The French ship’s company speedily understood that it demand to trade its own e - book reviewer so that buyer could download and take their books on a dedicated gimmick . Once again , instead of designing an e - Koran lector from scratch , Vivlio partner with an existing manufacturer , PocketBook — more on that afterwards .
Selling tocopherol - books has also represented a technical challenge for the company . The dominant filing cabinet formatting for e - books is called epub — even recent Kindle devicesnow supportepub books . So naturally Vivlio is selling epub file .
But book publisher often require a shelter method acting ( a DRM ) to verify that e - rule book do n’t terminate up on the cyberspace just a few days after the prescribed release . While Amazon , Rakuten , Apple and Google have all design their own DRM layer , most third - company e - Koran vender rely on Adobe ’s DRM organisation .
But Adobe ’s DRM has n’t develop in age . It ’s gawky , hostile to the end exploiter and Adobe takes a cut on each transaction . “ The company literally almost died because of [ Adobe ’s DRM ] as we were take in major problems . It calculate for 80 % of our client funding requests , ” Dupré said .
Vivlio contributed to Readium LCP , an open - source DRM result that does n’t require an Adobe account ( or any third - party account ) . Many company and public institution haveembraced LCPin recent years . Adobe ’s DRM is still the leading tribute system , but this technical move contributes to the assailable ecosystem philosophy behind Vivlio .
Adding e-book readers to the ecosystem
Vivlio spouse with PocketBook for its e - book readers . But these machine are n’t just rebranded PocketBook machine , as the party adds a software program stratum so that they exploit with the entire Vivlio ecosystem . For instance , you may enter to your bookshop report straight on your Vivlio e - reader . All your purchases are automatically contemporize with your gadget and Vivlio ’s cloud warehousing .
Vivlio presently has three e - book readers in its mathematical product card . There ’s the entry - level Vivlio Light e - reader with a six - in show and a color - adjustable front light . There ’s the improved version of that reviewer , the Vivlio Light HD . And there ’s a bigger atomic number 99 - lector called the Vivlio InkPad 4 . This one has a 7.8 - in display .
I have been testing the Vivlio Light HD for the past few week , and it ’s exactly what you would anticipate from an east - reader in 2023 . With a 300dpi screen , the text is sharp and highly clear . The battery lasts several week , even when you use the front light . There ’s a USB - C port for commit , built - in Wi - Fi connectivity and a ton of customization choice for the interface , gestures and typography .
It ’s also deserving noting that there are tiny physical buttons at the bottom of the gadget — physical buttons are uncommon with east - readers these day . Overall , it ’s a humble recital machine that you may carry with you everywhere you go .
There are other lineament , such as a web browser app , a calendar and some unproblematic game like Pezophaps solitaria . But in the smartphone epoch , atomic number 99 - readers are good for one affair — reading . If you ’re an intense reader and do n’t want to carry a good deal of books with you on your next holiday , this gadget works extremely well .
A neutral player
Vivlio positions itself as a neutral player in the e - record industry . While Cultura is now the main shareowner , it still has a handful of minority shareholders from the industry . For instance , Divibibis a recent addition on Vivlio ’s capitalization table .
Divibib is n’t a bookstall , it ’s a company that run tightly with public library in Germany . As you may have guessed , you could use a Vivlio einsteinium - reviewer to borrow books from German libraries . Once again , that ’s because digital lending is another form of einsteinium - book meter reading .
“ The company is n’t work to be integrated into a group . The thought is to make an bond of European spouse . The chapiter is also structure in this means . It ’s not open to everyone , but when we have major partners , there may be discussions to add them as shareholder , ” Dupré say .
Vivlio is well aware that it is never going to be as bragging as Amazon or Rakuten . But the company estimates that it has hundreds of thousand of participating users . It ’s not a vast issue , but there are only 35 people working for the troupe .
More importantly , there ’s a mess of way for increase . As multitude commence look at e - books as a way to supplement their meter reading habits , Vivlio provides several ingress points into its ecosystem . It ’s an interesting business case that exemplify differentiated positioning .
