Turning Book Publishers Websites Into E-commerce Sites

Amazon is the biggest online retailer in the world

. It is also the biggest online retailer for books, physical books as well as e-books. However, this doesn't mean that publishing companies should give up on selling their own books on their company websites. Though Amazon is the largest e-commerce site, plenty of companies are carving out smaller sections of e-commerce for themselves.

Customers should have the chance to go directly to the source for the books they want, and publishing companies should not disappoint. Part of the reason that Amazon took over book retail is because it does it so well and publishing companies generally do not. Publishers need to design their websites with e-commerce in mind. This means making them easy to navigate, and also showing off the books to their best advantage.

Some ideas:

Like Amazon, let customers see inside the books. Many publishing companies just show a cover picture of each book, and that's all they show. Even offering the first chapter could be a viable option, since after reading the first chapter people will often want to read more. Customers appreciate any chance to 'try out' a product before they fully commit. A book is an easy product to do this with, since reading one chapter cannot give away the entire story.

Make the website easy to search. Have a special search just for the books, and tag the books with the most common terms associated with each. Categorize the books in practical ways: by genre, subject, author, target age of reader, etc. It should not be a hardship for your customers to find what they want. Once your customer types in their search term, only books genuinely relevant to that term should appear. If people have too much to sift through, it will turn them away from your site and perhaps your books.

Allow customer reviews to be posted about each book. People trust reviews by their fellow consumers more than they might trust the blurb written by the publisher for the book. This also makes for a more interactive website, which lets people feel like they are a part of your business. At the same time, post staff recommendations of books, and if someone clicks on one book, recommend similar titles.

A way to drive traffic to your site through interactivity is by placing Facebook 'like' buttons on each book. People often check out what their friends recommend.

Make checkout easy. This means as few steps as possible--keep it simple. For pre-checkout, make sure the basket is obvious on every product page and can be reviewed before committing to purchase.

Actively engaging consumers and selling books from their own websites might be just what publishers need to dig their way out of the recession into a digital era.

by: Tamara Jacobs

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