Indigenous Business series: Massy Books
The Indigenous business series brings together voices from majority-owned/controlled (51% or more) by Indigenous peoples’ businesses that have worked with UBC. The series is a short interview with the Indigenous Business to hear their experience and perspective with the procurement process and working with UBC.
The series intends to help increase supplier diversity opportunities for Indigenous businesses and improve inclusion of Indigenous suppliers in upcoming work at UBC.
Massy Books, Indigenous owned bookstore
Massy Books is 100% Indigenous owned and operated and a member of the Stó:lō Business Association. At Massy Books, they “see every book as treasure” waiting to be discovered. From rare, off-beat and out-of-print books to familiar titles and current-day best sellers, they scour the internet and places near and far knowing that the books they source have a perfect match in a reader or collector who is as passionate about books as they are!
We had the opportunity to speak with Patricia Massy, owner at Massy Books to hear their experience working with UBC. Patricia is Nêhiyaw-Métis and a member of the Kelly Lake Cree Nation.
Can you share your experience doing business with UBC?
We love that so many departments at UBC order from us and are always open to recommendations of Indigenous titles we love!
How can UBC improve our Indigenous procurement process? Were there any challenges?
Using our online webstore or submitting a purchase order by email (to orders@massybooks.com) would make the process easier for our ordering department. Since there are so many different publications and titles, providing a list of just the titles can be challenging on our end. Using the specific books’ ISBN (978….) is the ideal way to submit orders by email. If ordered through our webstore, the ISBN is already included.
We have about 25 different departments ordering books, and it would be helpful if each department /club/organization entered in their department name first and then the name of the person second. For example, enter CRWR (Creative Writing) first, then followed by the name of the person ordering.
We are here to help in using our webstore (which is the preferable way), so don’t hesitate to email us with questions!
Do you have any advice for people at UBC who want to work with Indigenous Businesses? What advice would you give to Indigenous businesses who want to work with UBC?
We offer discounts on large orders, but generally for small orders we ask that requests for discounts are avoided. We are a small Indigenous shop paying a living wage and offering generous benefits to our staff, and hoping customers recognize the benefits of paying full price when they can.