BookSense.com On the Move...

Here BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos updates booksellers on the latest improvements and enhancements to BookSense.com.

Greetings! There's a lot of BookSense.com news in this edition of On the Move....

As the direct result of requests from booksellers, we've made a number of enhancements to BookSense.com -- some of which are pretty significant.

1. Site Administrative Improvements. In the "Edit Store Events" tool on your administrative site, you can now delete more than one event at a time, and we've put an additional "Add an Event" button at the top of the page.

2. Large Print Titles/Series. Large print and series titles are now identified throughout the database.

3. Order Fulfillment. Store fulfilled orders can now be converted to wholesaler fulfilled orders with the click of a button. On the order detail page, for store fulfilled orders, you will see a "Convert" button. Clicking this will shop the order to a wholesaler. If the wholesaler can fill the complete order from one warehouse, it will. If not, the order will convert back to store fulfilled. Also, if there is a reason an order cannot be converted, you will get an error message explaining why the conversion failed. (For example, if the order included a gift certificate.)

4. Setting Global Preferences. You can now set two global preferences for your site:

a) You can optionally disable automatic wholesaler fulfillment. Currently, if a customer places an order, the system tries to shop that order to the wholesalers unless that order has one of the following exceptions:

• the order is designated for in-store pick up;
  
• no wholesaler warehouse can fill the complete order;
  
• the order is for more than $150;
  
• the order includes a gift certificate;
  
• the order includes a short discount book;
  
• the order includes a request for gift-wrapping;
  
• the method of payment is anything other than credit card;
  
• the shipping address is international; or
  
• you upload your inventory and have put yourself first in the cascade.
  

If any of these situations exist, the order is automatically designated for store fulfillment. With today's change, you can now make all orders store fulfilled and then convert them to wholesaler fulfilled on a case by case basis (see #3 above). The default will still be for automatic wholesaler fulfillment, so if you want to disable that you'll need to go to the new "Preferences" page (bottom of the left-hand navigation bar) and change the status.

b) You also have the option of routing orders that include short discount books to wholesalers. As mentioned above, currently, an order with a short discount book will automatically be store fulfilled. You can now opt to shop those orders to wholesalers as well. This should increase the percent of your orders that are wholesaler fulfilled. To set this default, go to the new "Preferences" page (bottom of the left-hand navigation bar) and change the status.

We'll be adding more global preferences later in the year.

5. Gift Certificate Options Changed. We have removed the option for customers to purchase $5 gift certificates, and have added the option to purchase $35 gift certificates. (The options are now $10, $20, $25, $35, $50, and $100.)

6. Net Priced Products. Net priced products no longer carry a price. Instead, there is a message directing the customer to call or e-mail for a price. The shopping cart icon has been removed from the product page for such items.

7. Inventory Upload Enhancement. For stores uploading inventory, we've added an actual date and time stamp of the most recent upload to the product page. This will give customers very accurate information regarding actual inventory status.

8. Shopping Logic. The shopping logic has been tweaked and the order cascade should work more efficiently.

9. Book Sense Gift Card Integration Starting. We are now starting work to integrate the new Book Sense Gift Card -- set to launch later this summer -- into BookSense.com. When the program launches, we're hopeful that customers will not only be able to buy gift cards online, but will be able to redeem them online as well. We'll keep you posted.

Finally, our part-time java coder Keith Bodie will be leaving BookSense.com, having landed an excellent full-time job. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Keith for all the hard work he's done in helping improve and enhance the BookSense.com product so much over the last few months. A search for a replacement is underway.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at len@booksense.com or contact BookSense.com customer service at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1234 or staff@booksense.com.

Thanks!
Len