Business and enthusiast wise, book is a big industry, although in Indonesia it still far from enough (compared to the number of people and published books are only average 7.000 titles annually). However if we take a good look at it in reality, saying that our reading interest is low is still far fetched.
Internet based service bridging technology especially with printed publishing is still trending, both text based books and book with images like comic or photography books. Some choose to bridge book rental process, among others is Wetick.com.
Book rental process is still popular in Indonesia, starting from rental places up to library, there’s always some in every city although still lack in numbers. People’s behavior is they rather borrow than buy books – although it will still cost them some money – is one of the opportunity Wetick.com grabs.
Wetick, is an online library providing variety of books, magazine, and comics in physical form. To borrow any, you should register on their website and pay registration fee of Rp 30.000 and opt (and pay) membership fee. You can choose Regular, Express and Unlimited package, all vary in fees and facilities.
There are at least 3 reading materials to choose: books (fiction and non fistion), magazines, and comics. For non fiction they provide business and economy, social politic, literary, etc.
I have to say they have confusing interface. Even the payment method brings me doubt because there’s no obvious information as to where I am transferring my money to. I only found membership package, again, without any information of payment address. The only account information is in How To Register menu, more like a case example than official account number.
The website is too simple and not really interesting. Small collection of books, although I saw some popular titles on their bookshelf. Even How To Return the Book may bring some problems in rental process. Wetick does provide long information, including the one that says you cannot borrow more books if you are still keeping some with you based on your quota. What might interest users is book returning facility, Wetick will cover the returning expenses, although the process is restricted to using JNE and you must not lost your shipment receipt.
I found out from a bit of browsing here and there that Wetick apparently is part of I3M, a college institution from ITB. Their operational office is at Asrama Bumi Ganesha. Wetick was established in December 2010.
I think some improvements will do Wetick good. I have often said that I am rally interested in seeing new ways or development from already available services related to books and internet usage.
Indeed not all ways may succeed, especially because publishers often find this book rental-borrow process annoying because users would rather borrow than purchase. I’d say, one of the ways that Wetick can develop is by using local approach, like besides adding collections, this rental-borrow process is better done locally first (while studying users enthusiasm) or at least in smaller range of area/cities, then heading on to larger area.
Social element including option sharing, review, can also be added or if possible they can collaborate with online bookstores or publishers to borrow their books as promotion method or use books stored in storage room.
Well, that is my saying on Wetick, what’s yours?
Initial information on Wetick via Startuplokal Showcase.
