AbeBooks UK Bookseller Roundtable
Manchester, June 18th 2008&
Edinburgh, June 19th 2008
Agenda
IntroductionNew Products & Services introduced in 2007-8Company MetricsPrice Changes Effective as of April 28th, 2008Payment Services Update Effective as of June 23rd 2008
Break: Tea & Coffee – 3:15pm
Marketing: New InitiativesAbeBooks in the MediaProduct StrategyOpen Roundtable Discussion
New Products & Services Introduced in 2007-8
Completion Rating & Bookseller Since Date Star-Rating boosts buyer confidence Higher completion rate results in more happy
buyers Increased Net Merchandise Value (NMV) Bookseller Since date improves buyer trust
Bookstore Search on .co.uk Loyal customers will now find your shop and your
catalogues more easily
Infrastructure Improvements New hardware and procedures will ensure that
AbeBooks remains PCI DSS compliant What hardware – more computers?...
180 Servers keep AbeBooks functioning
More than 35 kilometers of cabling
Over 75 terabytes of storage1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes or 1 trillion bytes
What does it take to run a website this size?
Equivalent to the power draw of 35,000
iPods
Each data center consumes 35,000VA
of power
New Products & Services Introduced in 2007-8
No-Frills Marketplace Gojaba.com
Marketplace for buyers and sellers in emerging markets such as Russia
Currently available in Russia, Sweden & Brazil (Poland coming soon)
Supports foreign alphabets
No competition to AbeBooks websites
Testing which markets are ready for the introduction of a ‘full-service’ AbeBooks website
Low monthly fee - no commission
New Products & Services Introduced in 2007-8
Launch of Italian Marketplace AbeBooks.it Italian buyer website AbeBooks.it was launched April 2nd to
target the Italian domestic market (population 59 million, 29 million Internet users)
Italian language customer support Targeted marketing (online & offline) Established community of approx. 2,000 bookstores; already 100
Italian sellers listing with AbeBooks Existing clients from Italy buying mostly rare and out-of-print
books in French or English language UK sellers will profit from additional sales Italian seller site will launch early summer 2008 No extra subscription fees, 3.5% payment service fee TIP: Update your shipping rates for shipments to Italy Most expensive book sold via AbeBooks in April
Company Metrics
Over 13,500 booksellers worldwide (more than 2,100 from the UK)
Value of books sold in 2007 on all websites: $ 190 million US (up from $ 170 in 2006)
Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) on AbeBooks.co.uk website increased by 15% YOY
Completion rate by item increased by 1-2 percentage points AbeBooks.co.uk nominated
for Which? Award Best Online Retailer 2008
AbeBooks.co.uk nominated for Which? Award
Best Online Retailer 2008
Price Changes (effective as of April 28th)
Subscription Fees
Will remain unchanged for sellers with up to 50,000 listings (more than 97% of all European sellers)
NEW: Subscription fees increase for sellers with more than 50,000 listings
Number of Books Monthly Fees0 - 500 GBP 17501 - 4,000 GBP 254,001 - 10,000 GBP 2810,001 - 20,000 GBP 3520,001 - 30,000 GBP 5330,001 - 50,000 GBP 8350,001 - 100,000 GBP 120 (previously: 116)100,001 - 150,000 GBP 175 (previously: 150)150,001 - 500,000 GBP 250 (previously: 200)500,001+ GBP 350 (previously: 200)
Price Changes (effective as of April 28th)
Commission Fees
NEW: 8% commission will apply to book price plus shipping plus extra charges (previously: book price)
Minimum and maximum commission amounts will remain unchanged and apply to total item amount (= book price plus shipping incl. any extra charges)
Payment Processing Fees
Will remain unchanged
NEW: Rate will be discounted to 3.5% on all domains for purchases exceeding 500 USD / 400 EUR / 275 GBP in value
Planned: All credit card payments will be processed by AbeBooks. This means that AbeBooks will no longer forward any payment card details (Amex, Diners, Switch...) to sellers in order to meet the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Book Price: £ 20.00
Shipping: £ 2.50
Total Item Price: £ 22.50
Sample Calculation
Old Pricing Model
Processing Fee¹: £ 22.50 * 3.5% (5.5%) = £ 0.79 (£ 1.24)
Commission: £ 20.00 * 0.08 = £ 1.60
New Pricing Model
Processing Fee¹: unchanged
Commission: £ 22.50 * 0.08 = £ 1.80
¹ Only where applicable: 5.5% on orders via AbeBooks.com and .co.uk. 3.5% on orders via AbeBooks.de, .fr, .it, IberLibro.com.
What is this PCI DSS?
Q: What does PCI DSS stand for?
A: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
Q: What is the PCI Data Security Standard?
A: It is a security standard developed by the major credit card companies to prevent credit card fraud, cracking and various other security threats. As a company collecting and processing large amounts of payment card data, AbeBooks must be PCI DSS compliant.
Q: What are the PCI DSS control objectives and requirements for merchants?
A: Build and Maintain a Secure Network, Protect Cardholder Data, Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program, Implement Strong Access Control Measures, Regularly Monitor and Test Networks, Maintain an Information Security Policy.
Payment Services Update (effective June 23rd 2008)
New Payment CardsAs part of the on-going requirements for PCI DSS compliance, we have to discontinue the transmission of all credit card information to our booksellers. 3 new cards added to the AbeBooks Payment Service:
American Express
JCB
Carte BleueThe new cards will be processed by AbeBooks as with Visa and MasterCard - the same payment service fees will apply and the same fraud checks will be made.
Maestro/Switch - We are looking at possibility of implementing this in the future.
Marketing: New Initiatives
New Brand Slogan and Refocused Brand communication Strengthening the AbeBooks brand with a strong and simple
message
Newsletter Marketing Segmented buyer newsletters Email marketing
Abandoned Shopping Basket Emails First Time Buyer Emails Coupon Emails
Coupons: Testing has started Activating loyal buyers
Homepage Redesign User friendly and easy to navigate
New FREE Promotional Toolbox Material For UK sellers New FREE Promotional Toolbox Material For UK sellers Daily orders possible FREE packaging material – bags & packing tape
Jiffy Bags
Marketing: Strong Online Marketing Channels
Search Engine Optimisation (Natural Search on Google & Co)
89% YOY growth in orders via AbeBooks.co.uk
Affiliate Marketing Over 5,000 partner websites link to AbeBooks.co.uk 52% YOY growth in orders via AbeBooks.co.uk
Search Engine Marketing (Pay-Per-Click) Highly efficient bidding strategy, maximising revenue while
maintaining the best possible Return on our investment (ROI)Pay-Per-Click
Natural Search
Marketing: New Strong Partnerships
coming sooncoming soon
UK PR hits June 2007 to June 2008
Number of times mentioned in major daily newspapersThe Times – 8 The Guardian – 7Daily and Sunday Telegraph – 13 Financial Times – 3The Independent – 2 Daily Express – 2
Also Daily Mail, Scotsman, Edinburgh Eve News, Brighton Argus, Belfast Telegraph, Irish Times, Bristol Eve Post, Yorkshire Post, Oxford Mail, Irish Independent, etc.
The Associated Press - Sex and the City – Story was picked up by over 160 media outlets including The Guardian, CNN, Washington Post etc.
MagazinesGood Housekeeping, Time Out London, Easy Living Magazine, The Business, Times Literary Supplement, Rare Book Review, Bookseller, Design Week, etc.
Which? Magazine Customer Service SurveyIn March 2008, AbeBooks.co.uk tied with Play.com for top spot in a Which? Magazine customer satisfaction survey.Coming in JuneAbeBooks.co.uk was nominated for Online Retailer of the Year award by Which? Magazine. (Play.com and Amazon are also shortlisted – Play.com won)
Product Strategy 2008
New Search Web Services Better exposure of your books on partner websites and
meta searches
Continued Infrastructure Improvments Addressing on-going requirements to remain PCI DSS
compliant
Adding French & Italian ISBN Data & Cover Pictures HomeBase 3.0 - Beta-Testing has started Multi-editing More search attributes Categories New quantity & weight fields Mapping wizard HomeBase 3.0 will continue to be distributed as freeware
Homebase 3 Alpha
Multi-editing Feature
Categories
Quantity
New Search Attributes
Product Strategy 2008
New Inventory Tools (Mapping Tools) Greater stability for our inventory upload pipeline New process scalable and more efficient Books will be put online faster as time goes by Usage of Mapping Tools has started already and will be extended
over the next months
Search Engine Optimisation Initiatives URL rewrites (changing dynamic links to static links) Additional landing pages Content updates to our Product Landing Pages to make them
more relevant Google Sitemaps GOAL: Expose your inventory more efficiently on Google & Co