First impressions can sometimes be misleading especially in today’s high tech world. Talking to this ambitious and achievement-oriented twenty-something, one can sense the optimism of this young CEO, who goes by the rather uncommon name of Audi Mok.

At 29, this cyberpreneur oversees the operations and management of online bookstore Arthursbooks.com Sdn Bhd. Since the opening of its first terrestrial store in Johor Bahru in 1996, the bookshop has gone on to establish two more branches in Penang and Kuala Lumpur. And early this year, it opened its doors to the global consumer, an idea that has been in the works for about a year.

"It’s a fairly new site. We’re not a pure play Internet retailer," says Audi, who is the executive director. "You could say our latest venture in the Internet scene is an approach towards developing a click and mortar business model.

"I feel that the integration of both our physical and online stores bodes well for our customers who now have the option of shopping hassle-free online and still have the physical comfort of browsing through their favourite titles at our physical stores."

(From left to right) Anantha, Audi and Yu Gene in a brainstorming session

Audi founded the company together with Chew Heng Ching (chairman) and Arthur Lee (managing director).

With two feet entrenched in the best of both worlds, nothing could go wrong, right?

Not really. According to Audi, the Web can be an unforgiving terrain, where market forces can be equally overwhelming. The risks in such business endeavours are high and Internet casualties also tend to grab headlines.

"The biggest difference between traditional and online retailing is the concept of time. Things happen a lot faster on the Net," says Audi adding that an initial investment of US$2 million was needed for the online set-up.

"Merchants now face a different profile of consumers who are more Internet- savvy, more knowledgable about the goods they’re buying and more demanding when it comes to service.

"Higher expectations mean that service must be prompt or else customers can get nasty."

But this impressive young man accepts every business hiccup with a fresh gulp of boldness.

Like every cyberpreneur, Audi cannot live without his Palm V and his Nokia handphone (WAP of course). This business administration graduate says it wasn’t so much the hype and promise of the Web as a goldmine for new entrepreneurs that got him into the bandwidth bandwagon. Rather he was more impressed by the e-commerce concept and how consumers were willing to purchase products that they had no way of seeing or touching.

"What left an impression on me was the idea people were prepared to buy items from a virtual marketplace. After several newsgroup sessions, it dawned on me that creating an online bookstore made marketing sense since certain products like books, movies and music tend to market well on the Internet."

The fact that Arthursbooks.com is both an online and physical entity means both operations and technical aspects are crucial elements in the running of the site and storefronts. That’s where Anantha J. Krishnan and Loh Yu Gene come in.

As director of operations, 24-year-old Anantha is an unassuming young talent whose quiet demeanour belies the eight years of experience he has accumulated in the book trade.

"I was working in Singapore for three years before I joined Arthursbooks about one and a half years ago. My responsibilities include managing the operations of all the bookstores both the physical ones and the online site," explains Anantha.

"My job is to ensure that daily operations go on smoothly, that means from the moment an order is placed to the time it arrives at the buyer’s doorstep. Still, hitches do happen especially when it comes to the delivery system, we really have no control over it.

"But so far, the courier services have been on schedule which means the books get delivered within a day or two, at most."

For 29-year-old Yu Gene, his love affair with computers was nurtured at an early age spent tinkering with gadgets, just so he could know how the machines work. It was such curiosity that would eventually land him the job of chief technologist at Arthursbooks.

"I discovered the joys of programming when I wrote my first programme at the age of 12. As with the nature of my job, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer screen since I manage the technical aspect, the site infrastructure and software development of the dot com business," says the computer science and IT graduate.

"Prior to forming Arthursbooks, I had been involved in some e-commerce projects for several high-profile e-retailers. Looking back, I think we (Audi and Yu Gene) were pretty daring to venture into such projects during the economic setback in 1997. But it was a great learning experience."