Borders UK online shop which opened this month is on course to
become the firm's largest store within a year, the retailer
revealed yesterday.
The book seller outsourced the main components of the website to
get it up and running within six months of getting the go ahead,
said Geoff O'Neill, Borders UK's head of supply chain.
O'Neill said he expects the online store to turnover £6m to £8m
in its first year, making it one, if not the largest, of the book
retailer's 42 UK outlets.
Borders UK had to wait until a 10 year non-compete agreement
with Amazon.com ended in February this year to launch its own
online store.
Borders has outsourced the websites suggestion engine, dubbed
Spookily Accurate Book Selector to
Librarythingy.com.
Readers of the site have put up 20 million tags to express their
opinions on books.
"Most book sites says if you liked
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, you will like everything by Dan
Brown," said O'Neill. "With Librarythingy, we think we have got
something different that will surprise people."
London-based Tangent Labs is responsible for website development
and hosting. Gardners Books, which has a back catalogue of 4.5
million books, handles order fulfilment.
Outsourcing has helped to cut costs and speed to market, said
O'Neill. The cost of the site is "considerably lower" than others
he has built. He says it will not pay back much in the first year
but as it takes the money from the customer before it has to pay
for the goods, it is already cash-positive.
"All my competitors have efficient accurate supply chain
systems, so I had to do something different, and that was to stay
true to what the company stands for," he said. Those values include
an unrushed browsing experience, a stimulating challenge and a
quirkiness that Borders believes is unique.
The online catalogue contains around one million books and
half-a-million CDs and DVDs titles. It features the usual opinion
spaces and forums where visitors can discuss anything they like,
plus digital TV interviews with authors, something O'Neill thinks
is unique.
Borders spent the months before the launch taking in-store
customers' e-mail addresses. "We are now emailing them with the
news," he said.
O'Neill said his chief executive is already asking him how he is
going to improve the site and to "jazz it up to beat Amazon". He is
cautious, saying they have to let the system bed in first. However,
it is in the back of his mind to work on a suggestion system that
crosses media. So if you like John le Carre, you might also like to
watch The Bourne Ultimatum and listen to U2.
"There is no silver bullet," he says. "Everything we have done
so far is pretty much common sense. But it is also what we consider
important. Underlying it all was the question: what does the
customer want? What you see is our answer to that."