E-commerce

This week, ABA CEO Oren Teicher thanked Rep. William Delahunt for introducing the Main Street Fairness Act, and he encouraged booksellers nationwide to write to their legislators to express support for the bill.

Rep. William Delahunt has introduced the Main Street Fairness Act, which would authorize the 24 states that are part of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement to require remote retailers to collect and remit sales tax on orders in their states.

As a growing number of independent booksellers look to make their online presence a key part of their store identity, it is important to ensure that the bookstore website is as productive as possible.

According to North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) Secretary Kenneth R. Lay, his department has no interest in obtaining, nor did it ask for, title-specific book data from Amazon.com in the state's efforts to enforce its use tax laws.

Google Editions offers a "a new, exciting twist on e-books," ABA COO Len Vlahos told a standing-room-only audience at Tuesday afternoon's session featuring Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships for Google. The session was part of ABA's Day of Education, sponsored by Ingram.

A Connecticut bill that would have required remote retailers that had online affiliates in the state acting as sales agents to collect and remit sales tax was tabled as the legislative session ended on Thursday, May 6. Though the bill, HB 5481, passed the Finance Committee with strong support, lawmakers backed away from the bill after Amazon.com threatened to fire its Connecticut affiliates if the bill was signed into law.

Following media coverage of Amazon.com's legal challenge to North Carolina's attempts to collect sales tax for online sales, a New York Times editorial characterized the retail giant's federal court action as a "losing battle to defend its longstanding practice of not collecting sales taxes in most states where it does business."

A number of ABA IndieCommerce stores have reported receiving fraudulent orders for The Twilight Series Boxed Set. A red flag is that the bill-to/ship-to addresses are different. The order usually comes from a Yahoo e-mail account and includes a request for overnight or two-day delivery, sometimes claiming it's for a birthday present.

Three improvements to ABA IndieCommerce websites were announced this week, including one that has resulted in lower rates on credit card transactions.

1) A new credit card processor

IndieCommerce has switched its credit card processor to Bank of America, resulting in lower rates on each transaction: