ELECTRONIC BOOKSTORE CASTS WIDE NET.

Byline: Juan B. Elizondo Jr. Associated Press 

Southeast of Austin, on County Road 340, sits a fast-growing and often-visited bookstore.

But don't look for the street address or set out to browse the store's vast shelves. CompuBooks Online Bookstore is an exclusively electronic store on the wide-reaching Internet system.

It can be reached by computer, phone, fax or mail. But there is little reason to visit the home office.

``If you have a physical location, you're limited to people who live nearby or drive by,'' said owner Pete Fratus. ``With our store on the (World Wide) Web, the world is our market.''

Fratus opened CompuBooks with his wife, Maria Munoz, four years ago in an electronic mall operated by the on-line service CompuServe Inc. About 18 months ago, the couple moved the store onto the Internet.

The bookstore serves customers in 141 countries, doing $800,000 in book sales last year. Netting about $12,000 a month, the bookstore is in line for a southwest regional small business exporting award to be announced later this year.

Fratus and Munoz opened CompuBooks intending to parlay the mail order experience into a store-front bookstore in Austin. That idea has long since faded.

``We'll never open a store front,'' Fratus said. ``An Internet presence is not just part of our marketing plan. It is our marketing plan.''

Fratus said on-line customers can find many other general and specialty bookstores on the Internet - a vast system connecting computers around the world. But he said CompuBooks is the only electronic bookstore not connected with a publisher or a traditional bookstore.

Fratus said Munoz, a former information service manager for the state, originally planned to operate the business in her spare time.

``We've spent a lot of time laughing at how naive we were, thinking that this would take only a little time,'' she said. ``Everything we thought was wrong. But we were flexible. We knew the technology was here.''

The bookstore not only has taken more time - both Fratus and Munoz work full time at it - it also has taken more and more space.

Originally housed in two rooms - one was their daughter's former bedroom - the bookstore now takes up three rooms and a warehouse built next to the couple's home on their four-acre lot in Waller County.

``At one point there were books on the kitchen table, in the hallway and the living room. We had stuff everywhere,'' Fratus said.

Munoz added, ``If you could see the master bedroom, you'd see it still.''

Munoz and Fratus said expected growth soon will force the entire business out of their home. But both said moving it out of their house will not grant them much freedom from the business.

``The phone is always ringing. Orders are always coming in, regardless of what time it is or holidays. We're always open,'' Munoz said.

Fratus added, ``The last time we went on a family vacation . . . was to Disney World three months before CompuBooks opened.''

The store employs nine people, including the couple's oldest daughter, 17-year-old Yolanda. She works at the store full time during the day, and dedicates her evenings to high school.

With flow charts in the office and warehouse, Fratus explains that two workers process orders, Munoz handles book purchasing and contracts with various international institutions, and a warehouse team of three maintains book stocks and fills orders.

Fratus does most of the financial and administrative work, and several other employees help in various positions.

Fratus said he expects to double his staff in the near future. He and Munoz hope to get not only their customers but some employees to enter the store via computers.

While CompuBooks advertises itself as specializing in computer titles, Munoz said the store works with customers to find any books published.

She also said future plans will lead the bookstore to handle more medical titles and more general reading titles.

``We do a lot for our customers,'' she said.

Sandra Nicholson, of the International Trade Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio, nominated Fratus and Munoz for the 1996 Small Business Exporter of the Year award. She said the couple approached the center soon after their first book order came from Italy.

International sales account for more than 50 percent of all CompuBooks sales, with much of that from Japan.

``The cost of a computer book anywhere overseas is double to triple the list price,'' Fratus said, explaining the high number of international orders.

Nicholson said Fratus and Munoz showed innovation and courage in starting on the Internet.

``CompuBooks has had the courage and business intuition to take advantage of the new technologies . . . and to ride the wave of the ever-expanding Internet,'' she wrote to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

An official there said CompuBooks is competing with nine other small businesses in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana for the regional award.

CompuBooks can be reached on the Internet at http://www.compubooks.com. A graphic CD-ROM version of its catalogs soon will be available, and phone numbers and a mailing address are available through the Internet.

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Photo

Photo: Maria Munoz and her husband, Pete Fratus, are the fo unders of CompuBooks Online Bookstore.

Associated Press