Wholesaler Fulfillment Now Available on IndieCommerce Sites

This week, ABA announced that wholesaler fulfillment is now available to member sites using the new IndieCommerce solution. The added functionality means a store can now have a wholesaler automatically fulfill an order directly to a customer and IndieCommerce will process the payment. In addition, the association announced that intuitive, easy-to-use e-Book functionality should be available sometime in June, accommodating three different e-book formats: Adobe, Microsoft, and the Palm Reader.

"Wholesaler fulfillment and e-Book functionality represent the last two functionalities we are moving over to the new system," said IndieCommerce Director Ricky Leung. "With these last pieces of the puzzle in place, it will mean that booksellers can do everything with the new Drupal system that they did before with the old system, and, importantly, also much more. IndieCommerce's open-source platform is practical, intuitive, and adaptable, and it provides our members with more robust administrative tools. IndieCommerce allows users to have much greater control over the look and feel of their websites, and allows ABA staff to roll out new features more quickly."

ABA is now offering training sessions and step-by-step instructions to current IndieCommerce stores to guide their site migration to the Drupal platform. Stores that haven't already set up a training session should send an e-mail to [email protected] offering several possible Monday dates in May, June, or July.

Training sessions are generally scheduled for Mondays at noon Eastern Time to allow stores in different time zones to participate at the same time and to afford enough time for participants to finish a session, which can run anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours.

In order to give stores an idea of how the site and the training will work, ABA staff has created instructional videos, which can be accessed with a BookWeb log-in. When a bookseller feels comfortable with the system's controls, ABA arranges for the store's existing content to be migrated to the new site. More advanced follow-up training will then be offered on Thursdays or Fridays.

Furthermore, Leung and ABA Chief Program Officer Len Vlahos will present "ABA IndieCommerce Solution: The New System," a demonstration and Q&A session, as part of ABA's Day of Education at BEA. The session, at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, May 28, is aimed at owners, managers, webmasters, and frontline booksellers from stores not currently using the product.

And on Friday, May 29, members can attend the ABA's IndieCommerce Users Group in Room 1E09, from 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. This session provides attending booksellers with a great opportunity to meet with and provide feedback to ABA staff on IndieCommerce.

Those interested in seeing examples of IndieCommerce sites can check out any one of these live sites:
http://www.nantucketbookworks.com/
http://www.villagebooks.com/
http://www.thebookloft.com/