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Booksellers head for the Net
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March 15, 1999: 11:14 a.m. ET
American Booksellers Assn. spinning Web site for independent stores
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The cyber bookshelf is about to get a little more crowded as independent book dealers prepare to launch their own Web site.
The American Booksellers Assn. said Monday it is constructing an e-commerce Web site that will allow its independent booksellers to sell their titles over the Internet.
"BookSense.com," slated to launch this summer, will be diving into the same competitive waters as online bookseller Amazon.com (AMZN) and Barnes & Noble Inc.'s (BKS) site barnesandnoble.com.
BookSense.com is part of the association's "Book Sense" national brand identity campaign. The ABA partnered with Muze, a database company, and iXL, a strategic Internet services company, to construct the project. The blueprint for the site was created jointly by Muze, iXL, the ABA staff and an Internet task force of independent booksellers.
Avin Mark Domnitz, ABA's chief executive officer, said the new Web site "is the most exciting and most complex project ABA has ever undertaken."
The Web site is designed to provide independent bookstores with the ability to have their own Web presence while allowing them to share back-end costs with their colleagues around the country.
The back-end will include the 1.6 million-title Muze database, state-of-the-art searching, shopping and transaction processing capabilities, and third-party fulfillment.
The bookstore front end will be based on one of several templates, or on the store's existing Web site. All sales will go directly to the participating stores, and ABA will charge a one-time set-up fee and a flat monthly fee for the service.
"While I strong believe that bricks-and-mortar stores will remain the dominant means of selling books," Brian Weese, a member of the Internet task force said, "there is no question that online sales are going to continue to grow at an explosive rate."
Booksense.com will preview at the BookExpo America trade show, which runs from April 30 to May 2 in Los Angeles. 
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