Why ABA IndieCommerce? One Bookseller's Thoughts

Lars Townsend, who oversaw the launch of the Politics & Prose website [1] on ABA IndieCommerce's Drupal platform, recently shared some thoughts on the benefits of having an e-commerce site in general and the advantages of the new Drupal platform specifically.

The bookstore, its website, and electronic communications with customers are "extensions of P & P's very community," he explained. "We do sell books online, but in my opinion, selling books via the Internet is a very distant fourth objective to:

1. Informing people about what's going on at P & P;
2. Encouraging people to come into the store, presumably to buy books;
3. Helping people find the books they want to read, and finally;
4. Increasing online sales."

Townsend noted that 84 percent of Politics and Prose website visitors "arrive from within 25 miles of the store, 92 percent from within 50 miles. Furthermore, the 'Directions to the Store' webpage is P & P's fifth most frequently visited page."

There had been a misconception among the staff that the Politics & Prose e-mail newsletter was the primary way of alerting people to what's happening in the store, said Townsend. However, after analyzing open and click-through rates, he concluded that the number of customers getting their news through the newsletter "pales compared to our website traffic." In the first two weeks that Politics & Prose was on IndieCommerce's Drupal platform, Townsend added, the numbers of visitors to the site grew significantly.

Another misconception, he said, was that e-mail was the primary driver of traffic to the website. "In reality, 29 percent of our website visitors come through the e-mail, 49 percent through search engines like Google, and 22 percent through links from other websites."

IndieCommerce's new content management system has allowed Politics & Prose to create "a site that pushes the user inwards," Townsend said. Visitors coming to the site via e-mail, a search engine, or from elsewhere "can follow links pushing them deeper and deeper into the site, presenting them with more and more relevant material."

Among other advantages of the new platform: "You don't need to know any HTML at all," Townsend said. "Knowing that language helps, but it isn't mandatory. Changes are as easy to make as logging in like a regular customer, and if you have the right access, all you have to do is click edit and type away. Changing content is almost as easy as writing in a word processor. "

Another benefit "is its handling of text and pictures -- they flow," he said.

Additionally, each bookstore has the ability to create a website that's visually appealing while reflecting the unique character of the store.

"If something is unappealing visually, it doesn't matter how well the text has been written, how excellent the events it promotes, or how typo-free it is; most readers will not bother to read it. As we booksellers know, to some extent, and for better or worse, books often are judged by their covers," Townsend said. Pivotal for ABA IndieCommerce sites from a visual standpoint is "you're not stuck with what some programmer decided your site should look like. You can move features around, add backgrounds, hide things, change colors, shapes, fonts, etc.... And, full disclosure, the people at [ABA] have been really helpful in giving me access to tweak these things."

Now, he said the Politics & Prose website is "unique, emblematic of our community."

In conclusion, Townsend said, ABA has "put together a really phenomenal product. The rest of the bookstore staff and customers seem pleased with it too.... To be sure, much work still needs to be done. For the most part, however, I believe that the changes that still need to be made, will indeed be made."