New technology and retailer partner leads to banner 2005 sales for Alibris
For 2005, holiday and annual sales at Alibris Inc., an online marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books, were up 30% compared with 2004, reports chief operating officer Brian Elliott. And sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving jumped 100%. The company, No. 98 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, attributes increased sales to a major systems upgrade, a new partner and web site enhancements. "We needed scalable systems to handle more inventory,” Elliott says. “We’re up to 60 million SKUs, and growing.”
Next came enhancing existing online capabilities. “We gather a lot of intelligence and create subsequent value-added data behind inventory listings,” Elliott explains. “With the upgraded systems, we’re standardizing the information, showing what’s new and what’s used, adding subject categories, all to improve the merchandising and marketing of products.”
Finally, the company made additional technological changes to position it for adding greater enhancements later this year. “We plan to do even more with the site,” Elliott says.
On a different front, a new collaborator spurred growth in 2005. Alibris’ partnership last year with Barnes & Noble Inc., No. 23 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, extended the reach of and subsequent sales opportunities for Alibris and its network of booksellers. “Our business grew substantially with the B&N partnership,” Elliott says.
Also in 2005, the company made various enhancements to its Web site. These included a search-by-seller feature, which enables customers to find more books from a specific seller and get discounts on shipping if they order multiple items from the same seller. “We’re constantly looking to improve the site’s conversion rate,” Elliott adds, “with continual A/B testing of new features, functions and designs.”
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