Technology Case Studies - Sales

Internet Book Shop

Bookseller - 16 employees - £3.5m turnover

The Challenge

A new company, wanted to gain a market edge on its competitors, most of whom sold their titles through shops or, occasionally, by phone orders.

The Answer

The company provides an Internet database (via their Web site) of one million publications, which potential buyers can access 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world. Searches for titles take just a few second. Customers can order and pay by credit card, there and then, over the electronic link.

Over 10,000 people a week are kept informed by e-mail about the latest titles and book reviews targeted at their individual areas of interest. The site initially took three people three months to prepare, and can now be maintained by one full-timer.

The Benefits

The company has grown fast. 50,000 people have registered as customers in a year, and over 80% of orders are from overseas.

CD-ROMs

A field sales team takes presentations to prospective customers on laptop computers equipped with CD-ROMs. The presentations use graphics and moving pictures to show, quickly and dramatically, what the company does. During the same visit, the salesperson collects information from the prospective customer. This is used to refine the company's knowledge of who its customers are and what they want. The technology cuts the time taken to make a visit and increases the usefulness of the information the salesperson collects during it.