By Naomi
At ABC, we pride ourselves on being booklovers, and the Booklover Box is a great way for us to express that.
The Booklover Box is a carefully curated selection of books and merchandise based on the size and genre chosen by a customer. It makes for a great gift for yourself or someone else, for a special occasion or just because. It can also be a great way to find books you may never have picked up yourself but will love all the same.
When ordering, customers select a size (ranging from extra small to deluxe) and a genre. The number of books included depends on the size of the Booklover Box and on customers’ requests.
If a customer wants only hardcovers, for example, there might be less books in the Box since they are usually a bit more expensive than paperbacks. Customers can let us know what books they already have and what they like (or don’t like). We keep track of any Boxes they have ordered previously and what books were included, so there’s no need to worry that you will get repeats!
Since everything is done by colleagues in-store, creating a Booklover Box takes some time. Generally, a Box will be dispatched within a week after ordering. It might take longer during busy seasons, such as Christmas and the holidays.
To keep things exciting, we’ve created limited edition Boxes that are available for a few weeks only, such as the Christmas Box. Last year it contained only books with “Christmas” in the title.
Another popular limited-edition Box was last year’s Halloween Box. The Halloween Box will be available again soon, right in time for the spooky season! Some other limited editions include the Cat Box, the Valentine Box and the Summer Reads Box. We have many more fun limited-edition Booklover Boxes planned, so keep an eye on our website and social media.
The Booklover Boxes are made by a small team of two in our store in The Hague. When a customer places an order for a Box, we manually process it, carefully curating the books to the customer’s wishes.
We aim for the content to be a surprise, but not a shock. We also ask section buyers if they have any suggestions for the genres they are most familiar with. Each Box also includes goodies and materials from publishers, such as bookmarks, tote bags, buttons and other fun things. We make sure to select items that are related to the Box’s genre and are appropriate for the customer.
Sometimes a customer gives lots of information, which means we have a lot to work with, but it might also limit our options. Quite often there are no requests, and then we have free rein to make a nice selection. Surprise Me Boxes with no requests are both the easiest and hardest Boxes to make, since there’s nothing to go on and anything is possible!
In addition to actually making the Boxes, we also plan for the limited edition Boxes. That means selecting a theme and a time frame, ordering books, sourcing items and making the promos, which usually involves the team wearing silly outfits and heading to the post office.
We put a lot of love and care into our Booklover Boxes, and in addition to enjoying them, we hope everyone who gifts and receives a Box is able to see that!
