AbeBooks.com turns the page on more web site enhancements
AbeBooks.com is reporting 2007 e-commerce sales of $190 million, an increase of 11.8% from web sales of $170 million in 2006.
Having made various acquisitions in recent years such as FillZ, a U.S. book inventory and order management company that assists booksellers with listing their books on third-party book sites, AbeBooks will spend 2008 building more internal web site features and functions.
Within several weeks AbeBooks, which maintains a database of 110 million books supplied by about 13,500 independent booksellers, will begin testing a new coupon program. AbeBooks says the new program is possible now that the company is processing more orders and payments directly on behalf of independent booksellers, and it will help the company improve sales in categories such as used text books. When the program goes live, AbeBooks will use segmented e-mail campaigns to send customers coupons that can be redeemed online.
Other enhancements the company expects to make in 2008 include building a new master books catalog, enhancing site search and refining its ratings system. In April 2007 AbeBooks implemented a back-end ratings system that assigns each bookseller a series of stars based on the number of successfully fulfilled orders. This year AbeBooks, No. 70 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, will extend the application to the front end of its e-commerce site so customers can also see the same fulfillment rankings as booksellers.
“We are still fine-tuning the rating systems,” says AbeBooks.com CEO Hannes Blum. “This new ratings system lets both the buyer and seller know each bookseller’s order completion success rate.” Frequent technology updates are important to keeping AbeBooks.com competitive in the crowded online book market, Blum says. For example, in August AbeBooks introduced TXT ABE, a new text message service that enables students to get textbook prices in seconds. “Being nimble with new technology features gives us an ongoing competitive edge,” Blum says.
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