Bookhead is the data platform for independent bookstores

We don’t just make apps for booksellers. Bookhead is also a data platform for bookstores, and all of our apps and services use this data platform. Our system can pull your inventory from most point-of-sale systems and your online sales from your e-commerce platform into one place. We can also combine that inventory with curation features. From there, you can share the data wherever you want: your website, your other tools, your own custom apps, or anyone you choose.

You decide what happens to your bookstore data.

Why does a bookseller care?

For a bookstore’s day-to-day life, the “data platform for independent bookstores” means nothing. If you adopt Bookhead, it works behind the scenes. You don’t have to change anything. It just works.

However, what is different now: your data is liberated. You can share it freely, how you choose. You decide who benefits from the data, instead of a vendor reselling it without your store getting any money.

This is the part that matters: because your data lives on an open platform, you’re never trapped. If Bookhead isn’t serving you, your data comes with you. A platform you can leave is the only kind worth trusting.

With Bookhead, you control what happens to your data.

The problem Bookhead solves, as the data platform

We’ve written about the fragmented tech stack of independent booksellers: by connecting the fragmented tech stack of indies, we are a data platform. That’s always been what we do. We are data engineers for booksellers. Very boring and unsexy.

But the fragmented problem: by using a patchwork of different software systems, all of your data is scattered about and you can’t use it because of this. As a data platform, Bookhead solves this problem.

Have you ever asked who owns your bookstore’s data? Your online sales, your inventory turnover, what you curate – that data is valuable, and vendors already sell access to it. Do you see any money from that?

That’s the problem. Your data creates value for everyone but you. Bookhead flips that: your data is yours, and you decide who benefits from it.

Integrations

We have proof. We sync inventory from Booklog, IBIDie, Basil, iMRCHNT, Square, Clover, and more to come. We have an Ingram and a Pubnet integration. We are integrated with Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, Biblio, Alibris, eBay and more to come. We have a Canva app for marketing, and plans to integrate with Mailchimp and Constant Contact. We have a Google Sheets app.

We got integrations.

How? Because moving data between systems is the whole job. The integrations are the platform.

How the apps consume the platform

Our apps use this data platform. Every app we make runs on these same APIs. And we’ve built our system in a way that other apps that we don’t make ourselves could also use your bookstore data.

This is key. We envision a world where our APIs (aka, the way to access your data) can be consumed by other code that we didn’t write. Maybe you have a custom thing you need and you can hire a developer, or are comfortable enough to vibe code it? Just give your developer a Bookhead API key that you control, accessing your data.

Do you want this? We can get your store set up with API access. Just email sam@bookhead.net if this is something you’re interested in.

Who owns a bookstore’s data?

A bookstore should control its data. The technology should not control it. Technology should not lock away data that you already control. The technology should help you gather, store, use, and share your data.

Bookhead liberates it. You control where it goes.