Bound for success

Few can lay claim to seeing off global retail behemoth Amazon with barely a scar to show. Tony Nash, co-founder of online bookstore Booktopia, is someone who has. At first the challenge seemed daunting. Nash had been working on a $40 million sharemarket raising and float. A prospectus was ready to go and investor roadshows were scheduled when, late in 2016, a week before setting the share price, Amazon announced that it was opening an Australian website to sell a cornucopia of goods. The float was scrapped.

“The fund managers said, ‘We aren’t going to invest in you. You are going to be annihilated,’ ” recalls Nash. But nothing happened. “There was no challenge from Amazon. It was really helpful because people can now see that they are no threat at all. They are focusing on other product lines.” To prove his