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/ Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Libros787 Puts Puerto Rican Literature in the Spotlight
Reports 150 percent sales growth in first quarter of 2021
L Giovanna Garofalo
ggarofalo@wjournalpr.com
@giopgarofalo
ibros787, an online bookstore dedicated to selling Puerto Rican literature, reported substantial growth throughout the pandemic, showcasing the importance of e-commerce for local businesses while underscoring the need to conserve the island’s literary legacy. It comes as no surprise that as people were forced to stay indoors to curb the spread of COVID-19, consumer behavior shifted to online retailers. According to a February 2021 analysis by Digital Commerce 360, online sales grew by 44 percent last year in the United States, while online spending represented 21.3 percent of total retail sales in 2020 compared with 15.8 percent in 2019. Carlos Goyco, co-founder of Libros787, told THE WEEKLY JOURNAL that last year, the company’s sales increased by 121 percent. Meanwhile, sales in the first quarter of 2021 currently surpass those from January to March 2020 by roughly 150 percent. He attributed this major growth to people seeking different forms of entertainment to pass time under lockdown and the fact that avid readers had scarce options to support local bookstores, as many businesses were forced to suspend their operations or even close their establishments. “The bookstores that they usually went to in Puerto Rico are closed and there was a shift in that market that fell on us,” Goyco stated. Goyco, who created Libros787 with Gerardo Enríquez, affirmed that the e-bookstore has experienced sustained growth since its conception in December 2017, just months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The idea surfaced after he noticed the mass exodus of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland, thus limiting their access to Puerto Rican literature. After launching www.libros787.com via the Shopify platform, the co-founders participated in two pre-accelerator programs for startups, Startups PR and Pre18, the latter of which was a precursor to their participation in Parallel18’s accelerator program. Now, the company has a total of five staff members who work in packaging, customer service and curating content, among others. “When we left those programs we followed
The e-bookstore features a variety of works from Puerto Rican and other Hispanic authors, as well as literary classics in Spanish. >Courtesy of Libros787
a growth path that was not something as exponential as what we are seeing now, but by the beginning of 2020 —when there was still no pandemic—, we expanded the catalog,” Goyco said. “Our average order value was about $25 and now it’s $40, so people are buying more with each purchase,” he added. Libros787 indeed has a diverse literary offering. The site sells books by past and contemporary Puerto Rican authors, ranging from poetry, recipe books, art and photography, children’s literature, young adult novels, fictional works and Puerto Rico history, with this being a top-selling genre among customers, according to Goyco. “We also started working on books by [other] Hispanic authors. That is why you see that there are books by Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, all those greats,” he stated, adding that they also sell international works in Spanish, such as George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”
A Little Something Extra
Apart from books, Libros787 also has a “Gifts” section that features a variety of products featuring the company logo or commissioned art that illustrates Puerto Rican culture. Some of these include coffee mugs with a “garita” (sentry box) from El Morro, bookmarks featuring the Puerto Rican flag, stickers of Puerto Rican icons, board games and more. Moreover, the company is in talks with Coffee
Roasters to sell locally-sourced coffee on its website. This way, even Puerto Ricans living stateside can get a taste of home.
Expansion Plans
Goyco revealed to THE WEEKLY JOURNAL that Libros787 is in negotiations to launch its own publisher, called 787 Editores. He compared this business strategy to Netflix, the multinational streaming platform that started out by renting DVDs before moving on to streaming movies and TV shows, and now has a growing list of original content as well. “We see many publishing opportunities there because we noticed that there is a very large gap in terms of alternatives and diverse content being offered now in Puerto Rico, and we can make our contribution with that. Plus, we already have many independent writers who work with us, so the move is not as drastic,” Goyco explained, adding that this effort could be materialized by the end of this year. He noted that Libros787 would not have distribution exclusivity with books published by 787 Editores. Rather, the company seeks to see its works in the shelves of local, national and international bookstores. “We are really excited because nobody has really done this in at least the past five to 10 years. So, we will see if we can export our literature to other countries in Latin America, the United States and Europe,” Goyco affirmed.
