“This partnership shows the many creative ways bookshops here are bringing great reads to the masses,” said Eddie Lim, Thryft’s co-founder and CEO.
Ho TingXuan, Thryft’s retail manager and project manager of Bookshop.sg, added: “With this platform, we hope to spotlight and grow Singapore’s reading culture.”
With its slogan “Singapore’s indie bookshops, in this together,” the platform also aims to encourage participating bookstores to collaborate further.
Tan Waln Ching, director of City Book Room, a bookstore and publisher at Joo Chiat Road that specialises in Chinese books, said: “With this first collaboration, all the publishers, booksellers, readers and writers can soon come together and discuss, brainstorm, share our challenges and think of solutions.”
Ibrahim Tahir, director of Wardah Books, an Islamic bookshop in Kampong Glam, echoed the sentiment.
“The platform is secondary,” he said. “The primary goal is the cooperation among booksellers that this platform enables. It moves us away from the ruthless competitive model of capitalism.
“Once we realise that we can have a unity of purpose, we can do many other things for the reading scene here.”
Bookshop.sg is launching with eight stores, but the team hopes to welcome more independent bookstores and publishers based in Singapore in time.
To mark the launch, the team is also hosting a physical exhibition of curated titles from the participating bookstores, along with a booksellers’ panel at Thryft Hub at 120 Lower Delta Road on May 31. Interested attendees are welcome to register for the event via Bookshop.sg’s Instagram page.
