10. What about long-range plans?

The existing marketplaces and comparison shopping engines that most sellers rely on are being challenged by the direct integration of search engines with product catalogs, e.g. Google Search integration with Google Base. This creates a whole new marketplace. We want to power this next generation of marketplace by empowering the sellers so they can focus on giving the best deals to their buyers instead of just competing on single item prices. To bring about the next generation marketplace, we plan to involve the seller community to best understand the new needs and we plan to build a strong R&D team to deliver on the right solution.

From initial sales we have received, BuyBundle holds some promise for booksellers in providing more avenues to market their books online. It will be interesting to see it further develop as a more robust service. Meanwhile, Ebay will be allowing select Half.com booksellers on April 1st to easily list their books via Ebay Express, which we will be participating in and posting results via our site blog. We are also testing the new Barnes and Noble beta, available for only a few booksellers. So far, our results have been very positive. Look for my interview with B&N and an article on their beta program in next month’s issue.

Carl Burnham
SouthpointBooks.com