Buyback at the conclusion of each academic term is the tried-and-true technique college bookstores use to acquire used book inventory, but technology developed by the Nebraska Book Company opens the door to accessing the growing volume of course materials that students sell to each other online through Web sites like Abebooks, Amazon.com and Half.com.

With Nebraska Book's Marketplace PowerBuyer software, bookstores can augment their inventory of lower-cost used-books by automatically shopping the popular Web sites where students post course materials for sale, and fight the perception that the bookstore is more expensive compared with buying online.

In addition, Nebraska Book helps college stores to sell used books online through a strategic relationship it established with Monsoon, a provider of marketplace selling software and a solution provider.

Nebraska Book Company began working with Monsoon two years ago, and 132 stores were involved in development and testing. “It's a tool for the bookstore to remain competitive,” said Barry Major, president and chief operating officer, Nebraska Book Company. “It's an extension of the store.”

At Oregon State University Bookstore, Textbook Department Manager James Howard brings the online textbook market on campus.

College stores recognize that PowerBuyer and Monsoon are an opportunity to participate in online marketplaces where the majority of students go to sell and buy books. “There is a vast market out there, students are shopping online,” said James Howard, textbook department manager, Oregon State University Bookstore.

Mostly, Howard expects adding online markets to improve the sell-through of nearly 75 percent on used-textbook inventory the bookstore achieves with in-store sales. Also, OSU Bookstore buys back not only titles adopted for the next academic term, but purchases and stores books on speculation, or the likelihood they will be used in an upcoming academic term.

Monsoon is like insurance or a relief valve the bookstore can fall back on to sell off any excess book inventory at market price. “There's still a hunk of inventory that's still sitting on the shelf,” he said.

Further, Monsoon and PowerBuyer reduce the labor required to manage in-store and online sales of the 1,600 titles used for classes at OSU. “The return on that labor investment has never been high enough for me to say 'let's go whole hog into buying and selling online,'” Howard said. “These two programs systematize and automatize what bookstores do and save time.”

Portland State University Bookstore anticipates similar benefits from using PowerBuyer and Monsoon to manage excess inventory, including books that can no longer be returned to publishers or bought during buyback. “If we can sell it to a broad market and recover the cost as opposed to marking it down, we just felt that was a better option for us,” said Ken Brown, president/CEO, Portland State University Bookstore.

Brown runs a lean staff, and is concerned that the very manual and labor intensive other options for selling online diverts staff time, leaving other responsibilities unattended when business demands maximum efficiency.

“This is going to allow us to automate that process,” Brown said.

Another benefit is coordinating receiving of books bought online from many different sellers. PowerBuyer automatically scours the Internet, helps manage receiving at peak time and better coordinates getting books on the shelf. It integrates with WinPRISM and creates receiving documents for books purchased and relieves the textbook manager of this cumbersome responsibility. “Students find inexpensive books, so why can't we,” Brown concluded.

PowerBuyer and Monsoon integrate with PRISM to let college stores manage the books they acquire and sell online seamlessly along with regular in-store inventory. The trio of components further give stores the capability to fill want lists of books needed, create separate lists and adjust the buy price as well as the quantity, then purchase from Web sites on the market like Amazon.com and Abebooks.

Nebraska Book's PowerBuyer has a $750 implementation fee plus 5 percent of transactions. To use Monsoon, stores pay an implementation fee of $1,500 plus 5 percent of sales per month.

PowerBuyer is available as standalone software, but Nebraska Book suggests using it with PRISM/WinPRISM for the integration value with store inventory management data.

Bookselling differs from other forms of retail and has its own unique challenges to making a profit, this year's BookExpo America raises the prospects for success with a two-day workshop for prospective booksellers who are considering purchasing an existing store or establishing a new business.

The workshop, “Retail Bookselling: Creating Foundations for Success,” is part of the American Booksellers Association's Day of Education and is presented May 26-27 by Paz & Associates, a training and consulting group. Tuition is $450 for ABA members and $650 for non-members.

“In some communities, small chain bookstores in mall locations are being closed, and some leases for large chain bookstores are not being renewed. All this opens the doors of possibility,” said Donna Paz Kaufman, a trainer and consultant with Paz & Associates, in information about the workshop.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, discusses the company's happenings and what's in store for the future.

Booksellers face the same challenge confronting most retailers in an uncertain economy: how to survive in tough times. At the same time, changes in technology and consumer behavior inspired other educational topics for the BookExpo.

As challenging as the current retail climate is, booksellers need to recognize opportunities. ABA's Day of Education features educational sessions and panels on a number of topics, including everything from budgeting and monitoring sales and expenses to using social media and best practices for handselling.

BookExpo America is May 28 to 31 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, N.Y. ABA's Day of Education is Thursday, May 28, the day before the exhibit floor opens; and it builds on the program begun at the Winter Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah, last January. The Day of Education curriculum further includes programming for children's booksellers from the Association of Booksellers for Children.

When Amazon introduced Kindle 2, a revised and refined version of its popular e-book reader last February, attention focused more tightly on how greatly the nascent digital books market is advancing on traditional formats.

E-books represent a small, but growing segment of total book sales. At the start of the year, e-book sales for January 2009 were a mere 1.12 percent of overall book sales as tracked by the Association of American Publishers.

Technology's influence on the book industry is evident from more than just the number of educational sessions devoted to e-books at this year's BookExpo America, which is May 28 — 31 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, N.Y.

Topics this year reflect responses by booksellers and publishers to new ways of selling and marketing in order to remain viable. Digital technology is one of a host of session topics along with social media, genres, and data trends.

Oscar-winning actor, Louis Gosset Jr. captured the attention of CAMEX attendees during the Opening Mega Session much the same as he captivates audiences for his performances on Broadway as well as in motion pictures and television.

Gosset was one of several celebrity speakers featured during CAMEX 2009 in Anaheim, Calif., which included authors Mitch Albom, “Tuesdays with Morrie,” Pulitzer Prize-winner Jim Sheeler, “Final Salute,” and Michael Pollan, “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.”

Held this year in Anaheim, Calif., March 13 — 17, CAMEX followed a familiar format: a three-day trade show preceded by a two-day educational conference. Attendance totaled 6,658, comprising 1,933 members from 961 stores plus 4,535 exhibitors representing 720 firms and occupying 1,504 booths.

Next year, CAMEX returns to the East Coast. It will be in Orlando, Fla., March 12 — 16. Other future CAMEX dates are Houston, Texas, Feb. 25 — March 1, 2011 and Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2 — 6, 2012.

CAMEX is hosted annually by the National Association of College Stores. This year, NACS recognized Randal Storm, manager of the Lincoln Christian College and Seminary Bookstore, with the Aspen Award. The Aspen Award recognizes a collegiate retailer who has made consistent contributions to the professional development of others. Also, a personalized brick will be laid at the NACS headquarters in Oberlin, Ohio.

Storms contributions include serving as a member of the NACS board of trustees and being an avid supporter of NACS education. He also continuously volunteered for events and facilitated countless NACS educational programs at national, state and regional association meetings.

NACS installed two officers and five trustees to its board during CAMEX. Vicki Morris Benion, director of the Bucknell University Bookstore, is the newly elected NACS president for 2009-10, succeeding Melanie Sparks, director of the University of New Mexico Bookstore. Sparks continues with the board as immediate past president. In addition, Carol Miller, director of the NDSU Bookstore, was installed as president-elect.

• PRODUCT SHOWCASES
   Products and services of special interest to college store buyers and managers

• INDIE BESTSELLERS
   Based on sales of Fiction and Non-Fiction in Hardcover and Paperback
   for the week ending March 15, 2009.

• POS and E-COMMERCE DIRECTORY 2009
   Point of Sale & E-Commerce Suppliers

To better meet the growing demand for electronic versions of textbooks and other course materials, the Collegiate Retail Alliance (CRA) is partnering with CourseSmart LLC to give members new e-textbook capabilities.

Under the partnership, CourseSmart is integrated with VisualRATEX, the store management system developed by RATEX Business Solutions, which is wholly owned by CRA member stores. The VisualRATEX inventory management and point-of-sale syste m now accommodates the purchase of e-textbooks, a feature also incorporated in the new eRATEX Web store being rolled out later this year.

With CourseSmart, VisualRATEX users can offer students digital versions of nearly 6,000 textbooks from 12 different publishers, which represents over a third of all titles in demand in North America.

Acceptance of Ingram Digital SM's VitalSource interactive e-textbook platform accelerated as student and faculty adoption increased by over 600 percent in January 2009 compared with a year ago.

VitalSource e-books are downloaded and infused with advanced interactive functionality, including the ability to share notes, search within text, highlight, copy and paste sections and access embedded multimedia materials.

Also, the VitalSource Bookshelf reader application allows efficient access and organization of a robust library of content directly on a student personal computer or Mac, and the books do not carry an expiration date.

In its first 10 years, BookShelf gained 100,000 users. Since June, however, the number of users tripled to 300,000 in January 2009. In January alone, 44,453 users downloaded the BookShelf reader.

Another feature contributing to Bookshelf's rapid adoption is its social networking capability, which lets students and faculty share notes with each other. In January 2009, over 3 million notes and highlights were shared.

Baker & Taylor Inc. is saving costs and raising efficiency by consolidating its distribution centers in Woodland, Calif., and Indianapolis, Ind. Distribution is being consolidated into Indianapolis because of its central location with the transition set to be complete by May 15.

Baker & Taylor used the California facility for its wholesale club book division, Baker & Taylor Marketing Services.

At Nebraska Book Company, Nate Rempe moves to the position of chief technology officer and vice president, and is responsible for management of the company's information technology department along with customer support and service.

Rempe joined Nebraska Book four years ago and was vice president, Internet strategy.

An article in the February College Store Executive about the future of digitally distributed course materials in college stores concluded with comments that were erroneously attributed to Mark Nelson, NACS digital content strategist and vice president of NACS Media Solutions LLC. The closing comments belong to Todd Summer, director of campus stores division of Aztec Shops Ltd, San Diego State University.

With a modest price tag hovering around $400, Netbooks are popular for portable Internet access without the burden of carrying more powerful yet heavy laptops and swiftly established a third computing option.

The success of netbooks in 2008 drove awareness of brands like Acer, ASUS and MSI while triggering a flood of copycat devices, which contributed to a good deal of consumer confusion over what the different versions could do.

In “What Makes a Netbook? Shifting Technologies and Industry Players Blur PC Category Boundaries” Forrester Research predicts netbooks and smartphone devices are likely to continue as hot new devices this year. Manufacturers at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas jolted the competition by introducing devices ranging from Sony's VAIO P series on the high-end to more budget-conscious models from Coby.

As netbooks evolve this year, Forrester takes a step back to work out what they are for and ensure the definition is appropriate. It is clear that as more netbooks come to market this year, the category is becoming blurred as manufacturers try to differentiate their models.

Mostly, Forrester's Paul Jackson with J.P. Gownder and Dan Wilkos anticipate three main marketing challenges despite sales numbers that indicate the netbook has arrived. To manufacturers and consumers the term netbooks has grown beyond devices that originally established the segment, such as ultraportables and sub-notebooks. Second, is defining the value proposition. Netbooks are cheap, but companies go a step further by adding expensive components and charging more. Consumers, then, argue they can get a proper laptop in the same price range, which dilutes the value proposition.

Lastly, Forrester considers the netbook a viable third form factor after laptops and desktops. Capability for media tools/playback, choice of operating system or configurability is not limited compared with laptops. Instead, nebooks are in a niche defined by portability and consistently connected online experience. The problem is this is difficult to demonstrate in a retail environment, particularly when compared against a personal computer on neighboring shelves.

D&H Distributing reinforces its commitment to “Go Green” by adding a Web Refinement Tool focused on environmentally conservative merchandise.

Customers can easily search for and identify more than 2,100 ecologically conservative items on dandh.com with the enhanced “green”-certified refinement option. Searches can be filtered by manufacturer, category or price.

The portal is available at www.dandh.com/gogreen, and features vendor partners including Cisco, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, SonicWALL, Acer and AMD. Inventory includes an extensive list of hard drives, notebooks, desktops, server solutions, networking, processors, motherboards, printers, peripherals and monitors.

Also, responding to retailers interested in selling laptops, Toshiba is expanding its agreement with D&H Distributing to include the popular Satellite and Qosmio laptops.

Apple's all-new iPod shuffle is nearly half the size of the previous model, and it talks. The VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak song titles, artists and playlist names.

The third-generation iPod Shuffle is smaller than an AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord. With the press of a button, users can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. It even gives status information, such as battery life.

The iPod shuffle comes in silver or black, has a built-in stainless steel clip, up to 10 hours of battery life per charge is priced at $79 for 4 gigabytes of storage.

Belkin's Micro Auto Charger and DualAuto Charger charge iPod or iPhone batteries in the car. Micro Auto Charger is compact and sits flush on the dashboard and charges at 1 amp. With two USB ports, the Dual Auto Charger simultaneously charges an iPod in one port and a cell phone in the other. A quick-charge port powers at 1 amp for an iPhone while the second port charges at 500 milliamps, which supports iPods and cell phones, such as BlackBerry.

Prices are $19.99 for the Micro Auto Charger with Charge Sync Cable for iPod and iPhone, $14.99 for the Micro Auto Charger and $29.99 for the Dual Auto Charger (works with Motorola, BlackBerry and any mobile phone using a mini-USB).