A new chapter: Prague book reseller to expand to Austria

The recent success of Prague’s well-known secondhand book store, Knihobot, is proof that reusing and reading remain popular in the capital.

Knihobot recently reported a turnover of CZK 182 million last year, which amounts to a growth of 140 percent, mediaguru.cz writes. After making itself a popular name in Prague, the company now plans to take over Austria. The first phase, which starts this month, will focus on the purchase process. The company won't have a physical presence in the country at this moment.

With two branches in Prague, the store’s core aim is to prevent the waste of books. It does this by buying people’s unwanted titles and reselling them in physical stores located in Prague’s Holešovice and Vysočany districts.

Since autumn last year, over 100,000 books have been accepted and sold in Knihobot every month. Despite the firm increasing prices, the number of customers grew by 200,000. 

In 2022, the reselling platform branched out to Slovakia, which according to founder Dominik Gazdoš was crucial to its success. A recent revamp of the website – it now offers categorized recommendations on top of a search function – also contributes to its growing popularity. On Google alone, it has over 2,700 reviews with an average rating of 4.9/5.

Last year Knihobot teamed up with fellow bookstore Levné knihy (Cheap Books), a brand that has tens of store across the country. In select stores, people can drop in and handily sell their books for cash. According to Gazdoš, this network of bookstores will be expanded in the coming months, boding well for Knihobot.

The second edition of the Knihotaxi (Book Taxi) – in which a designated car comes to your doorstep to pick up your books for resale – made waves last year, and given its recent growth will likely do so at the end of this year too.

Knihobot’s success is microcosmic of the circular economy in Prague, which has been gaining traction in the past decade. More shops in which reused, recycled, and repaired goods can be bought have been springing up in the capital.

A once-small independent Czech firm expanding to Austria is not only big news for the company itself but also, in this context, remarkable for the secondhand and resale industry in Czechia.