Extra services propel ChooseBooks.com

By: Kate Lindemann

ChooseBooks.com focuses on creating “added value”. The company provides extra services while their listing book sellers offer inventory at the same competitive prices as on other sites. The site’s added value focus is attracting both buyers and sellers. Hundreds of booksellers have registered and uploaded inventory. Orders are increasing and more buyers are registering accounts.

In December, ChooseBooks.com announced preferred customer status and a frequent buyer program for any buyer who registers “so we have a place to put their book buying points.” Last month we began giving away free bookmarks through our Resources page.

Now Choosebooks.com announces a joint venture with IOBA. A search engine on IOBA’s web site will search the inventory of all IOBA members who list with ChooseBooks.com. Deanna Ramsay is integrating the ChooseBooks.com search engine form with the IOBA site.

Ramsay said, “ChooseBooks has been, as usual, a pleasure to work with. They’ve provided every option we’ve asked for, suggested a few extras, and have really bent over backwards to set up this search option for IOBA members.” Ramsay hopes to have the search working in a few weeks but said that unforeseen technical problems could make it as much as eight weeks before everything is running smoothly.

ChooseBooks.com has created an “added value” niche. Their theme of “many extra services for the same competitive book prices as other sites” offers a real choice in the on-line book market.

To check out ChooseBooks.com, go to: http://www.choosebooks.com . Buyers who register will automatically be enrolled in the site’s frequent buyer program and will earn points for every dollar spent on books.

#choosebookscom

Book dealer software – a progress report from ammonet.

By: Jack Benson

URL: http://www.ammonet-services.com

First, many thanks to IOBA and IOBA Standard editor Shirley Bryant for the opportunity to describe some of our current book-related development projects here at ammonet in Zurich.

The new http://www.bibliophile.net web site and database is currently in beta test phase. The features likely to interest dealers most are the custom search page facility, and the improved search and display.

We have always offered a custom search script to bibliophile.net dealers, and this will now be much easier to configure to match our dealers’ own sites, and for those dealers with no web site of their own, it will be possible to host a customised page on our servers. All the search options of the main site will be available in the custom search but without bibliophile.net logos or links. This is thus a genuinely individualised search page, backed by a powerful database, that returns the buyer to the dealer’s own site at the completion of a purchase.

In addition to custom searches for individual dealers, groups of dealers such as cooperatives and societies can have a multi-dealer search page that sends orders to their individual dealers. You can view a version of this under development for the International Antiquarian Mapsellers Association (IAMA) by following the links on their site at www.antiquemapdealers.com. Don’t place any “test” orders – the site is live! There you can see a completely customised search and ordering system that integrates nicely into the IAMA web site. Administration of the membership and database can be carried out independently of bibliophile.net administration. We see this as an inexpensive alternative to independent development and maintenance of a web site/database system that might be beyond the means of groups who would nonetheless like to have their own collective bookselling site.

The search facility of the new site is much improved. An “any word” search plus sorting by price, author and title have been added, and in addition we have developed a sophisticated “sort by relevance” feature designed to yield search results sorted to reflect the buyers’ search criteria very closely. The “date loaded” search option will take account of purge files that reload books displayed previously. In addition to our shopping basket, there will be a direct inquiry short-cut for use by shopping basket-shy book buyers.

Many other improvements have been made, especially with regard to image display and image management. For those dealers who have to enter the URLs of their images by hand, a purge file will preserve the URLs of images linked to book records that were previously listed, obviating the need to re-enter image URL data. We will offer the option to house images on our server, using our server-side image manager. Dealers who chose to do this will be pleased to know that our new system will generate thumbnails from their images on the fly. Of course, image URLs can be uploaded in data formats that contain the appropriate field, including the non-canonical IM field in UIEE.

Our popular “ammonet Secure” credit card data transmission system has just been updated (http://www.ammonet-services.com/ammonet-com/ammonet-card-system-eng.htm). This is a secure system designed to pick up credit card data for processing (or not processing) later by dealers who already process cards and see no need to subscribe to real-time processing systems. It can be linked to the bibliophile.net shopping cart and any other system that accepts a simple link. A link can be sent by e-mail so that a customer is directed to the dealer’s secure card data upload page. It is browser-based, easy to use and heavily encrypted. This system sidesteps problems that plague automatic-charge e-commerce – book already sold, chargebacks, dubious cards, known miscreants etc. We have added an option for receiving cheque data for those who process cheques electronically.

Last but not least, I’m pleased to announce that ammonet has been selected to develop a web site/database for the UK-based Provincial Book Fairs Association (PBFA). In keeping with the long-established function of this Association, their site will present members’ stock organised around real and virtual book fairs, as well as a comprehensive search and order system. There will be strong emphasis on image display since there’s no doubt that pictures sell books. Completion of this project will bring onto the internet market a significant number of dealers who currently have no internet presence.

#bibliophilenet

The BookCellar.com Announcement

http://www.thebookcellar.com The BookCellar.com is pleased to announce the launch of our new dealer site http://www.TBCdealers.com a database for used, rare, and out-of-print books. We are dedicated to bringing booksellers and book-buyers around the globe together under one high-powered search engine.

We offer FREE listings with no setup cost and no obligations. You only pay when you sell. We list your books on our site and buy them from you at a 20% discount. We’ve been listing dealer’s books for a few years now but have just recently gone live with our Agent Intranet Site and are a privately owned company. As book sales are slowing at the larger sites we offer an additional means of sales with no monthly fee.

1. Create an account to list your books.

2. No monthly listing fee or set up costs.

3. Instructions are covered throughout the site regarding upload and order processing.

4. Your books will appear on our front-end site within 4-24 hours (following your initial upload).

We’ve taken the best functionalities and features of the larger sites and brought them all together. We offer simple navigation and a high-powered engine-delivering search results in roughly 1 second, the fastest book engine online.

If you are looking for another online medium to sell books and are interested in listing your books on our site please contact us at cs@thebookcellar.com

We now invite you to join as a BookCellar Agent and increase your online sales.

We look forward to continuing to serve the online bookselling community and welcome the opportunity to work with you.

Brian Serpone President and CEO The BookCellar.com LLC/ http://www.thebookcellar.com

#bookcellarcom