Selling Books Online: eCommerce Solutions for Independent Bookstores
IndieCommerce
To reach IndieCommerce or IndieLite customer support:
- Our regular business hours are: Monday - Friday 8AM to 6PM EST
- After hours: Monday - Friday 6PM to 9PM EST we monitor email, but you may experience a delay in getting a reply
- Saturday - Sunday and Holidays we monitor for urgent & emergency emails & calls.
You can reach us at staff@bookweb.org or call us at (914) 406-7500 (option 2) or 800-637-0037 (option 2)
If you have an urgent or emergency issue, please email staff@bookweb.org and use the word "URGENT" in the subject line.
ABA’s state-of-the-art e-commerce platform enables ABA members to create unique, content-rich, easy-to-operate, and fully transactional and customizable e-commerce websites. The IndieCommerce database consists of nine million in-print titles and more than four million ebooks and audiobooks. IndieCommerce employs dedicated customer service representatives and offers 24-hour online information. In addition to ABA dues, IndieCommerce users pay a monthly service fee of $175 per month.
March 2018 price special! For the first three months after signup, new IndieCommerce program participants will pay just $25 per month; for the next three months, the fee will become $100 per month, a savings of $75 from the standard rate.
Just a few of the reasons to consider IndieCommerce…
- Designed and developed exclusively for independent bookstores
- Scalable open-source Drupal based ecommerce platform with contemporary features
- Hosting services
- Customizable look and feel
- Unlimited pages, sections, content, characters, and products
- In-store inventory book upload
- Store's unique products in inventory
- Improved search ranks based on stock, sales history, and format
- Search engine optimized URLs
- Easy check-out with in-store pickup, shipping options, and various payment options including credit cards, PayPal, coupon codes, and online gift codes
Please visit the Help Desk for more information, or email the IndieCommerce staff.
IndieLite
IndieLite is a lower-cost, low maintenance e-commerce option based on the IndieCommerce Drupal platform. It is specifically designed for booksellers who are just getting started in e-commerce, or stores that want a website that requires very little time and effort to maintain. This service offers booksellers the essential tools they need to create a web presence for their store.
Below is a side-by-side comparison of IndieCommerce and IndieLite. To find out which product is best for your store, email the IndieCommerce staff.
Specifically designed for independent booksellers, IndieCommerce is a full featured e-commerce solution with powerful online marketing tools. IndieLite offers the minimal e-commerce essentials for a low-cost web presence that is simple to maintain.
IndieCommerce | IndieLite | |
Monthly Fee | $175 | $50 |
Set-Up Fee | No | No |
Site, Domain, SSL etc | ||
Site URL | Custom | Sub-domain |
SSL Cert | Yes | Yes |
Shopping Cart / Checkout | ||
Secure cart and checkout | Yes | Yes |
Collapsed checkout panes | Yes | Yes |
Payment method - Credit card | Yes | Yes |
Order comments | Yes | Yes |
'Source' based and 'Destination' based sales tax | Yes | Yes |
In-Store Pickup | Yes | Yes |
Payment method - Pay at store | Yes | Yes |
Tax Exempt | Yes | No |
Additional checkout panes | Yes | No |
International Orders | Yes | No |
Payment method - Paypal | Yes | No |
Payment method - House Account, Purchase order, Gift card, Online Gift code | Yes | No |
Save customer credit card profiles | Yes | No |
Custom shipping methods | Yes | No (Pre-defined methods, stores can set rates) |
Theme, templates etc | ||
Responsive and mobile friendly | Yes | Yes |
Multiple site design templates | Yes | No |
Color wheel | Yes (some templates) | Yes |
Custom template | Yes | No |
Admin | ||
Permission to add customers | Yes | No |
Permission to create Rules | Yes | No |
Unlimited admin roles | Yes | No (Only Store Admin and Order Admin) |
Book data and inventory | ||
Inventory of over 9 million titles (Ingram) | Yes | Yes |
Related Editions | Yes | Yes |
Discount / Mark Up prices | Yes | Yes |
Create book lists | Yes | Yes |
Option to sell pre-order titles | Yes | Yes |
Create additional retail inventory | Yes | No |
Option to sell titles not currently in stock at Ingram | Yes | No |
Bulk upload of book lists | Yes | No |
Staff reviews | Yes | No |
Sync Local Store Inventory | Yes | No |
Search, Browse etc | ||
Optimized book search | Yes | Yes |
Predictive Search | Yes | Yes |
Browse, with option to select categories | Yes | Yes |
Other content included in search | Yes | No |
Customizable search weights | Yes | No |
Advanced Search | Yes | No |
Custom Products | ||
Create products manually | Yes | No |
Bulk upload of custom products | Yes | No |
Sell custom products online | Yes | No |
Update and monitor stock | Yes | No |
Gift Cards / Online Gift Codes | Yes | No |
Content - Store supplied content | ||
Events calendar
Calendar of store events that is maintained by the merchant
|
Yes | Yes |
Upcoming Events view | Yes | Yes |
Blogs | Yes | Yes |
Contact | Yes | Yes |
Wishlists | Yes | Yes |
Unlimited content (pages) | Yes | No |
Webforms | Yes | No |
Taxonomy | Yes | No |
Content - Provided by IC / ABA | ||
Indie Next List | Yes | Yes |
Indie Bestsellers | Yes | Yes |
Indie Kids Next List | Yes | Yes |
Reading Group Indie Next List | Yes | Yes |
Regional Holiday Catalog | Yes | Yes |
ABC Catalog | Yes | Yes |
Privacy & Security Policy | Yes | Yes |
Refund Policy | Yes | Yes |
Misc | ||
SEO tools | Yes | Yes |
Social media integration | Yes | Yes |
Email Sign up Pop-ups | Yes | Yes |
Google Analytics | Yes | Yes |
CAPTCHA | Yes | Yes |
Affiliiate program | Yes | No |
Custom Customer Groups | Yes | No |
Discount Coupons | Yes | No |
Disqus | Yes | No |
Multiple Outlet Locations | Yes | No |
Preview New Features | Yes | No |
Order Management | ||
Editing an order | Yes | Yes |
Manual order creation by store staff | Yes | Yes |
Send orders to Ingram | Yes | Yes |
Send Pre-orders to Ingram | Yes | No |
Multiple order fulfillment options | Yes | No |
Create custom order workflow | Yes | No |
Reports | ||
Order report | Yes | Yes |
Sales report | Yes | Yes |
Money management report | Yes | Yes |
Customer email export | Yes | Yes |
Third Party Services | ||
Kobo eBooks | Yes | Yes |
Libro.fm Audiobooks | Yes | Yes |