Camden Lock Books wins Caboodle award

10.03.14 | Lisa Campbell - The Bookseller

Camden Lock Books has won the inaugural Caboodle Bookshop of the Month award.
The prize has been set up by National Book Tokens - which runs Caboodle – to honour the store which has demonstrated the best use of the Caboodle scheme in that month.

Caboodle is a rewards programme which offers a direct marketing service for booksellers to reach their local customers, along with encouraging bookshops to sell national book tokens - and customers to buy them - via rewards when buying national book tokens.

Camden Lock Books is celebrating its 30th year in business and was selected as this month’s winner by judges after impressive book offerings. “The judges were impressed by the number and variety of offers Camden Lock books has added since Caboodle launched, in addition to a wide selection of events, price promotions, news and updates about the shop,” NBT said. The bookshop has run promotions on individual titles, regular three for two offers and advertising on non-book stock.

As part of the prize, the shop will receive a hamper of food and wine, and will be profiled to all 100,000 Caboodle members across email and social media.

Jason Burley, founder of Camden Lock Books, said: “It is so easy to use Caboodle to update customers of things like the launch of a new blog), special book offers that relate to seasonal or topical events, and I even reassured customers that we would still be open during the recent tube strike via Caboodle. The Facebook and Twitter links are a really convenient facility on Caboodle to spread your news through the main social media outlets. A lot of thought has gone into a website where you see all the relevant statistics clearly presented on your home page - it encourages me to keep updating my offers.”

Mike Burt, National Book Token’s Marketing Manager added: “We are delighted with the response that Caboodle has had so far. Since launch in October the number of booklovers on our database has reached nearly 100,000, the majority of whom have signed-up to receive local offers emails. We urge bookshops around the UK and Ireland to use this resource – it’s a free, simple way to email local customers."
Caboodle will be running the award every month for all participating bookshops.