Step By Step Guides for Booksellers - Results A-C

You have a low to medium need for e-commerce. However, e-commerce could be of great benefit to your business and it could help you to grow your business and trade more efficiently with the increasing number of e-commerce capable distributors.

Booksellers are very lucky in being offered a number of free e-commerce services so you can benefit from e-commerce provided that you have the basic infrastructure required (a PC, browser software, modem and telephone line or broadband connection with ADSL modem). You can register with the free services below and decide which is right for your business. Please note that at present no single company provides a complete solution for e-commerce for all sizes and types of book business so you will need to consider a combination of services.

e-commerce Services	Main Function	Comments	Price
PubEasy	Search products and order on major affiliates see list	Central services enables sending a file of orders for routing to correct affiliate. About PubEasy	Free
Nielsen BookNet Web	Online TeleOrdering	Online bibliographic search service included in price of BookWise CD-ROM etc. TeleOrdering sends orders to all publishers	Included in TeleOrdering subscription otherwise c. £500
Batch.co.uk	Review invoices and authorise payments made via direct debit	Online version of Booksellers Clearing House (BCH) You can only pay invoices from Batch distributors More about Batch	Free
Batch.co.uk/Returns	Input ISBNs to return	New service now with over 300 retailers registered and six major distributors live, others in development. More about Batch Returns	Free

It is important to understand the differences between these services as they have different strengths and weaknesses. This chart may help you to decide which service best suits your needs:

Functions	Nielsen BookNet Web	PubEasy	Batch.co.uk Payments	Batch Returns	Comments
Order on all UK distributors (via TeleOrdering)	Yes	No	No	No	If you need to access all UK publishers/distributors and wholesalers use Nielsen BookNet Web
Order on listed distributors	n/a	Yes	No	No	If you need to access only the major distributors plus Gardners and Bertrams use PubEasy
Acknowledgements	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Ask the service providers which distributors provide Order Acknowledgements
Delivery Notes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	If EDNs are important to your business ask the service providers which distributors can supply these via these services
Chase Dues	Yes	Yes	No	No	PubEasy currently has more distributors able to offer this facility than NBN Web
Bibliographic search on all UK publishers	Yes	Yes	No	No	A basic search facility on Bowker's Books in Print database is now available on PubEasy. Nielsen BookData's database is available online via NBN Web but this is an extra subscription service (free if you already subscribe to Nielsen BookData e.g. CD-ROM)
Bibliographic search on listed publishers	n/a	Yes	No	No	PubEasy has developed useful search facilities on the data available from their distributors
Pay Invoices	No	No	Yes	No	Batch offers invoice payment, statements, remittance advices etc.
Returns Requests	No	Yes	No	Yes	Batch Returns offers returns capability with many of the major distributors. PubEasy offers returns requests via Batch.

To do e-commerce properly you need to cover the following areas for as many trading partners as possible: orders, invoices and returns. You should consider using one or other of the following options:

Option 1:

PubEasy + Batch + Batch Returns

Ideal for small to medium general booksellers. These services are free to booksellers.

Option 2:

Nielsen BookNet Web+ Batch + Batch Returns

This would suit a medium-sized and more specialist independent bookseller who needs to order from a wider range of distributors. Note that Nielsen BookNet Web is a chargeable service (about £500 per annum).

Notes: 1. If you mostly use wholesalers, first check your wholesaler's web site and IVR (Interactive Voice Response/Recognition via the telephone) service. For more details contact your wholesalers: www.bertrams.com, www.gardners.com, www.the.co.uk. These services are usually free if you are a customer of these wholesalers.

2. The key to successfully implementing e-commerce and deriving maximum benefits from your investment is to integrate your e-commerce with your host systems so that re-keying of data is minimised. Always ask the e-commerce service provider how you could integrate his service to your system. (Don't accept the answer: "Our service can integrate with your system". Make sure they service really DOES integrate and ask about how and who is already doing so.)

3. Always talk to your systems supplier and your key trading partners early on in your research into e-commerce.

4. Ideally before investing in a new system you should consider how capable that system is at e-commerce. For example there is little point having a great system but one which cannot talk to your trading partners efficiently.

5. Pricing may be subject to change and so should be confirmed with the service provider concerned.

E-commerce Service Provider	Batch.co.uk	Nielsen BookNet	PubEasy
Web Link	www.batch.co.uk	www.nielsenbooknet.co.uk	www.pubeasy.com
Telephone	020 7802 0802	0870 777 8710	01304 852177

Another company worth contacting might be The Book Partnership which provides a really effective ordering tool for booksellers which enables them to compare the different prices, availability and discounts from wholesalers and distributors. Several booksellers use this chargeable service to maximise their margins. To find out more see: www.bookpartnership.com.