What Surprised Me About Starting an Online Bookstore

When we launched Grumpy Book Seller, we knew it wouldn’t be easy—but we were still surprised by just how many lessons were waiting for us on the other side of that first “Add to Cart” button. Running an online-only bookstore has been a crash course in logistics, publishing trends, and perseverance—but it’s also been full of unexpected moments that remind us why we love what we do.

First surprise? Physical books are still going strong. You might think that in the age of screens and streaming, nobody’s buying paperbacks anymore. Not true. There’s still a huge market for physical books—people want the weight in their hands, the smell of the pages, the ability to pass a book to a friend. And we get it. We’re book people, too.

But once we decided to start selling them, we quickly realized how few suppliers and distributors exist for independent shops like ours. Smaller shops (especially online-only ones) don’t have the advantage of huge, frequent orders. That means higher costs, less negotiating power, and more hoops to jump through just to get inventory. And don’t get us started on shipping. Bigger stores make it look easy—but that’s because they built a billion-dollar system to make it easy for them. We package the books ourselves in our house, and ship through USPS.

There were some smaller surprises too—like last year when we tried to sell wall calendars and didn’t realize they required a very specific envelope size. We found out the hard way: by paying full retail price at the post office, one shipment at a time. Lesson learned!

Still, it hasn’t all been hurdles. One of the best surprises has been seeing just how much is being published. You could build an entire shop just for kids' books. Or just romantasy. Or just business titles. There’s room to be specific, niche, and passionate—because the world of publishing is incredibly vibrant and diverse.

Despite the challenges, we wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. We get to share great books with great people—and build a life around something we care about. Every mistake has taught us something. Every win, no matter how small, has reminded us why we said yes to this crazy idea in the first place.

Thanks for being part of the story.