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Bookselling · Supplier portal

Zoom Books

A web portal built for Zoom Books. Suppliers send their stock however they keep it, and Zoom Books finds the cheapest copy of any book across all of them in one search.

Client
Zoom Books
Industry
Bookselling
Platform
Web app
Used by
Buyers and suppliers
Languages
15

Overview

Zoom Books buys from suppliers in many countries, and no two keep their stock the same way: different spreadsheets, different languages, different currencies. The portal takes every file in, checks it row by row and turns it all into one catalog, so the best price for any book is one search away.

What we built

Shown with sample suppliers and data.

Suppliers upload in their own language.

Each supplier signs in to a portal of its own, in any of 15 languages, and drops in a spreadsheet or CSV however it’s laid out. Suppliers only ever see their own stock.

A supplier’s own upload page, in German: drag in a spreadsheet or CSV, with what the file needs (ISBN, price, quantity and currency) explained underneath.

Columns matched, then confirmed.

Columns are recognised whatever language the headings are in, matched to ISBN, price, quantity and condition, and shown against a preview of the file. An AI reviewer double-checks each match: it can hold a file for a person to look at, but it never changes the data.

Reviewing a German supplier file: a preview of its columns ISBN, Titel, Autor, Menge, Preis and Zustand, matched to the portal’s ISBN and quantity fields.

Every row checked before it counts.

Every ISBN is verified, prices are read whether they’re written 15,50 or 15.50, and every price gets a US-dollar equivalent. Rows that don’t pass are set aside with a plain-language fix, ready to download.

Validation result for an upload: 9 rows read, 7 loaded, 2 errors, and the two rejected rows, an invalid ISBN and a missing price, each with a suggested fix.

Feeds that update themselves.

Suppliers with their own systems don’t need to upload at all. The portal collects their stock from a web address or file server on a schedule, as often as twice a day, with their access details stored encrypted.

An automated feed for a supplier: the transport (HTTP, FTP, FTPS or SFTP), the feed address, an API key, a twice-daily schedule and a Test connection button.

The cheapest copy, in one search.

Type an ISBN and every supplier that has it is ranked by price in US dollars, beside its original price, condition and stock. The best offer is suggested at the top.

Every supplier with Atomic Habits ranked by price in US dollars, from $13.73 to $19.88, each beside its original price in euros or Canadian, British, Australian or US dollars, its condition and copies in stock.

A whole buying list at once.

Paste a list or upload a spreadsheet of ISBNs, in any mix of formats, and get the best supplier for every title, plus the ones nobody has. The results export to Excel in one click.

Bulk lookup: 13 ISBNs pasted in mixed formats, 12 found and 1 not found, an Export to Excel button, and the first result with its suggested supplier.

Have something in mind?

Tell us what you’re building.

A new app, a platform your team runs on, or something half-built that needs finishing. We’ll tell you honestly how we’d approach it.

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