How did the idea for creating the Bukinist.al platform come about?

Bukinist.al online bookstore was established in July 2016, as part of a large online sales company in Albania, with at least five other platforms for selling products of different types and categories. The market for online book sales was at extremely low level at the time.

The name “Bukinist” is borrowed from the bookmaker Mendel, the famous character of the novel of the same title, written by the famous writer Stefan Zvajg. We have aimed to embody the philosophy of this bookmaker, with the aim of recommending books and providing solutions to the needs of our readers.

The book is one of the most essential tools that helps us to understand the world better, to be informed and to be entertained. In this aspect, Bukinist.al follows the philosophy of fulfilling the needs, desires and passions of its readers as best as possible.

Now, after more than six years on the market, we are happy to share with you the fact that Bukinist.al has in its portfolio the largest community of readers in Albania and is one of the two largest book market operators in place. This has been made possible thanks to the 11-year experience of the Aladini Trade Partner company and its dedicated staff in the field of e-commerce, being a leader with its four platforms: Bukinist.al, Aladini.al, Beba.al and Idedhuratash.al, as well as thanks to the extraordinary passion of Bukinist.al staff to build a professional platform for book management and marketing. Here I want to single out the maximum support that has been given since the beginning of Bukinist, even the head of our company, Valer Pinderi, who is one of the most diligent promoters of the book to help the business.

Is it difficult to sell books online in Albania?

The journey of Bukinist.al proves the best that it is possible to sell online in Albania, especially when it comes to books. We initially aimed to provide services to those categories of readers who did not have access to bookstores in the cities and villages where they lived, and to the Albanian diaspora, which was unable to buy Albanian books. This is where we focused at the beginning of our work, but then we realized that the book cannot be sold only by bookstores, even online ones. For this reason, we have also invited Albanian publishing houses, readers’ groups, the library network and other partners who are part of the book ecosystem to cooperate. Undoubtedly, the book has a diverse ecosystem because of its power to change our lives. Bukinist.al has known so far to connect all these partners with each other and to offer the best service for the marketing and distribution of the book in Albania.

One of the most favorable moments for Bukinist.al was the period of the pandemic, where for several weeks our platform was the only possibility to order the book, due to the closure of the network of physical bookstores in Albania. We were the one stop destination to buy books and during that period managed to quadruple the number of orders and readers within a short period.

We are happy to say that these readers we met during that difficult period, today return to us regularly, take our recommendations into consideration and refer us to their friends. Thanks to the professionals we have in our company, Bukinist.al has become the number one destination for Albanian book information and this is a fantastic opportunity for us to increase online sales. Also, we have kept the community of readers very close; we have created reader loyalty policies, through differentiated reader statuses such as “Friend of Bukinist”, – a “prime” service for readers, as well as we have worked with schools, universities and private businesses, – especially Albanian corporations, enabling you buying books in dedicated offers and recommending books that help them in their daily work.

We have clear plans to promote the book, authors and publishers, which are part of a well-thought-out strategy: From the beginning we have also built award mechanisms for the best books of the year in the categories: children’s book, poetry Albanian, Albanian novel, translated novel, non-fiction book and business and personal development book. And who better than a bookstore knows the values ​​of the book and knows how to convey the book to the reader. For this reason, I think that booksellers are much more than service providers. They are the managers of the human mind and spirit, and in this respect, I see that the role of the librarian has so far been undervalued in our societies; moreover, there have been no policies to support it, as there have been for authors, publishers, translators, libraries or readers.

Can you tell us something about the products you have online?

The Bukinist.al platform has over 13 thousand books online, where the vast majority are books in the Albanian language. We have children’s books, art books, non-fiction books, magazines and partially school, university and professional publications. The Albanian book market has recently been enriched with titles, which are bestsellers in world markets and come translated in a faster time than before. Two years ago we introduced the book in English, mainly focusing on business books, personal development and bestsellers. Currently, we aim to increase the diversity of categories and titles in the English language and therefore we have contracted the largest distributors in the world market to work in this direction. At Bukinist.al, we have created the opportunity for readers to receive gift cards and other products, such as gifts, bookmarks, and other bookish products, although we have a lot of work to do in this market. Here we are in the first steps and we are exploring the possibility of making the reading process more enjoyable for our readers, turning it into a pleasant “lifestyle”.

What are your future plans?

The world is in an extraordinary dynamic, with unpredictable events. The only constant that each of us faces is change. Without a strong education, without building a system of “continuing education” through reading, we find it very difficult to adapt to the environment that surrounds us. For this reason, we will be very focused on books that transform people’s lives, – on those books that help people to face the challenges of everyday life, on publications that equip readers with those “soft skills ”, which are not received in traditional education systems. For this reason, we remain a platform with recommending power and this is where our “secret” is found. In the near future we will aggressively enrich our portfolio of products and services. We will expand the markets with our services, especially in neighboring countries such as Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and Montenegro. For this, we are working with our distribution partners, with whom we will aim to provide the service at the cheapest cost to our readers outside Albania. Due to the expansion of our company in physical retail, we have combined online sales at Bukinist with sales in physical markets, aiming to promote Bukinist.al as best as possible. Also, we intend to further enrich our ecosystem, working harder with partners from the world of business, education and other fields. The constant growth of sales and the portfolio of our readers over the past six years has created other spaces for us and encouraged us to make other plans in the following years because we now have the way open to be the largest market operator of book in Albania.

Gjejevete.al is the first and most innovative marketplace in Albania. It started in 2016 as the need of the hour to offer merchants an opportunity to increase their sales capacity beyond the physical store while maintaining their brand. Gjejevete.al comes complete with a set of platforms that provide a 360 degree solution for merchants in Albania and the region.

While the online market in Albania is still focused on e-commerce, we have been entering m-commerce and q-commerce for several years, giving the merchants part of the platform the opportunity to offer fast service within 30 minutes and the opportunity to operate even 24 hours.

Operating in a small and mostly informal market like Albania certainly has its own challenges. Over the years, the main challenge has been the expansion of the network of partners. We had to find a solution that should offer us the opportunity for the network of partners to expand and function independently of us. We offered a very innovative solution, both from a technical and a commercial point of view, we expanded the concept of the marketplace from a profile that merchants took part of the platform to a free e-commerce website. In this way, when they managed their website, they automatically managed the products and stock on our sales platform. With this offered solution, we managed to have more than 400 traders on the platform and a range of over 100 thousand products.

From the initial concept of an e-commerce website, Gjejevete.al has been formed into a platform that offers a 360-degree solution to merchants in Albania and the region to become part of the online market without initial costs. With the solution we offer, of course Albania is a very small country for us and we are starting to expand in the countries of the region.

The construction of the internal platform has helped us to be as flexible as possible with integrations with third parties, but also to optimize and automate processes that improve service time, experience and reduce costs.

Having always focused on the customer, we are invested in offering the best online shopping experience in Albania, and I think this is the value we offer to this segment of the market.

What does your company represent and what market needs do you want to respond to with your services? Why do you think you are needed in the market?

Rubicon was established in September 2020, with the aim of operating as an Electronic Money Institution. Rubicon is a fintech company, licensed by the Bank of Albania, set up to provide financial solutions and develop a payment processing network. Rubicon was born to meet the needs of the market, highlighted even more by the Covid-19 pandemic which pushed rapidly in the preference of remote solutions. To respond to these needs, the company has brought its innovative product, the PAGO platform, with which it was awarded as the StartUp of the year by the Albanian ICT Awards in June 2022. The Pago platform is the instrument that will develop the network of payment processing. Rubicon’s operational activities also include currency exchange, advisory services, or the implementation of fintech support solutions for the financial activities for which it is licensed.

Which market segment does your business serve? Are you aiming to carve out a niche clientele for yourself in the near future?

Rubicon, as the main object of its activity, aims to provide the best quality services to customers who have or do not have an account in a second level bank in the country. While the market is increasingly oriented towards a formalized economy, we are there to facilitate this process and go to the customer “where he is”, enabling him to perform various financial operations in a faster way, simpler, time-saving and free!

Our solutions consist of redefining and redesigning financial experiences. Rubicon plans to operate entirely online with no branches or agents. The headquarters of the company is in Tirana, but its scope is throughout the territory. Our future plans and our ambition are to reach the European level, to accommodate Albanians wherever they are.

What makes you stand out from your competitors? What innovation do you think you have brought? What is your competitive advantage?

Human resources and company culture are very important to us. We create spaces for creativity, originality and have tried to recruit new elements so that each individuality finds its voice, contributing to decision-making, and making each project its own. Thanks to a healthy climate of cooperation, in our company’s culture we have succeeded in making everyone’s individualities form parts of a puzzle, complementing and highlighting each other’s value. All together we give the best, much more than separately. Talent and heart seem a promising combination for the longevity of a startup.

The cooperative relationship with Mastercard will provide our customers with facilities that provide us with a competitive advantage in the market, compared to other IPEs. Also, cooperation with the Albanian Post, which with its network of branches provides coverage throughout the country, will bring us closer to customers without access to the banking system, potentially increasing this “market niche”.

Which businesses do you partner with to expand market share?

Although competitors, we also cooperate with other electronic money institutions, and with second-tier banks to evaluate untapped business spaces in common interest, where the interaction in the market follows the “win-win” rule, that is, all the parties win. We are aware that the cooperation is not only to be as close as possible to the client, but also especially towards the improvement of the existing legislation related to the ecosystems of FINTECH startups, to make it easier for the latter to do business, and networking in favor of results as fast and effective as possible, it serves to increase the lifespan/sustainability of startups in the market.

What are the challenges of ecommerce at the moment and how do you think to solve them?

The successful implementation of “open banking” will facilitate the interaction between IPEs and traditional banks with physical branches, increasing the speed of conversion of physical money to electronic, but also vice versa, in favor of the ubiquitous customer.

How do you see the future of the e-commerce sector?

We think that this sector will develop and the competition will increase day by day, followed by the further development of the service sector in the country. Also, the development of smart tourism and the agribusiness industry will inevitably be accompanied by innovative solutions, which will cause headaches for the competition. We remain optimistic about market developments in this direction, hoping for a fruitful cooperation with the legislators.

What is SuperMart and what is it’s goal in the Albanian market?

SuperMart.al is a marketplace that aims to sell all types of products, having a range of over 14 categories and 70,000 products, to fulfill every wish and demand of buyers in Albania. SuperMart’s mission is to be as close as possible to every customer, becoming a bridge between product, business and modern technology, to make every purchase as easy as possible.

When did officially the ideas and wishes for Supermart.al came true, what are the challenges you’ve faced and things that went better than they expected?

The main challenge that SuperMart.al has faced has been the fact that e-commerce is a relatively immature market in Albania, since the technology has not yet been fully embraced by all businesses and customers. That being said, Albania has a very large purchasing power, which can have a strong impact on the increase and growth of the e-commerce market.

What is the development of SuperMart from day 1 to today? Have you introduced any novelty in the local market that existed in other markets?

SuperMart has maintained the same structure since the beginning, with a staff of 4 people, trying to maintain the vision for a more efficient work process. The innovation that SuperMart.al has brought to the Albanian market is the acquisition of the exclusivity of a best-selling brand in Europe, IvyBears, which are vitamins that offer excellent results while maintaining a satisfactory value/price ratio.

How does it feel to be part of the e-comm world? How much do these few things affect you: the development of technologies and the dynamics of trends?

The e-commerce world is very dynamic, and the technology that surrounds us is constantly changing, which makes this field very difficult, but also attractive at the same time, since the challenges we face on a daily basis are more and more unpredictable.