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A new site, BookPursuit, is employing the same combination of talent that launched Abe.com. Veteran bookseller Emile Kerssemakers and his nephew Remco de Bruijn have joined forces to develop a selling site that opened its virtual doors for business on October 1 of this year.
Kesselmakers is a third generation bookseller who's been selling online since 1999. "I Began with Bibliofind.com, after that ABE, ZVAB, etc. All great sites with great sales, although (but probably I don't have to mention that) getting more and more difficult and expensive," he reports.
De Bruijn owns a scientific bookstore and has been programming for the past 25 years. He is the one responsible for the technical side of things.
It's a daunting time to launch. This past summer BiblioDirect experienced serious programming problems and had to close the site (much to the surprise to many of its customers). Recently ChooseBooks notified the public that it faced too many expenses with too little funding to continue operation.
ChooseBooks faced an enormous undertaking, coming up against well-funded giants like Alibris and Abe. The site attracted sellers to list inventory but getting the public to buy from the site proved far more difficult. Faced with a scant number of orders, most sellers would opt to fill duplicate requests from the larger venues that demanded a high fulfillment rate.
How can BookPursuit overcome this problem?
According to Kerssemakers, "We started this site not with the intention to compete with the large sites but to try to create a site were the booksellers are number 1."
Unlike ChooseBooks' initial incentive of free listing, BookPursuit is charging from the onset. Prices range according to the size of inventory, beginning with 4,95 Euros a month for 300 books. Discounts apply for monthly fees paid in advance.
This, Kerssemakers says, "As soon as book counts will allow, we will get our site listed at Addall, Bookfinder, SFB, etc. Advertising at Google is an aim for the near future, but for now we are trying to get as many booksellers joining BookPursuit as possible to build an advertising budget. Soon we will be asking our members to help make BookPursuit known to their customers."
It will be with the initial sellers' dollars that the advertising will be pursued to attract customers. So far a healthy list of sellers appears on their site.
With so many obstacles a small company faces, it's encouraging to see some individuals still striving to create more opportunities for online sellers. For more information, visit BookPursuit.com.
http://www.bookpursuit.com
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