In this 1999 MetroByte episode, host Scott Rigby, Barnes & Noble representative Melissa Robertson, and interactive journalist Courtney Pulitzer discuss the burgeoning market for buying books online. They explore why Barnes & Noble launched its e‑commerce site, describe the site’s navigation and search tools, showcase product pages with synopses, reviews, ratings, and author chat transcripts, and walk through the shopping‑cart checkout process, emphasizing security and price savings. The conversation also situates Barnes & Noble within a competitive landscape that includes Amazon, Books‑A‑Million, and other emerging retailers, highlighting how rich online features aim to retain visitors and drive sales. The segment ends with a promotional call‑to‑action for viewers to visit the site and a reminder of a giveaway for callers.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Scott Rigby. Tonight on MetroByte, we're going to take a look at buying books online with Melissa Robertson from barnesandnoble.com. We'll show you how to pick a book from over 4.6 million titles. And if you're in the market to buy a color printer, well, we've got Mike Elgin, the editor of Windows Magazine, to help us test drive a couple of models. And if that weren't enough, we're going to answer your frequently asked questions right here on the show, so bring them on. If we answer your question on the air, you're going to get this. Hey, Microsoft IntelliMouse, absolutely free. So give us a call toll-free at 877-MSG-METRO. Hey, welcome to MetroByte. Listen, call us tonight because if you've got any questions about computers and we answer your question on the air, you're going to get one of these. It's an IntelliMouse from Microsoft. So call us, call us. The phone number toll-free is 877-MSG-METRO, or you can fax us at 877-METRO-FAX, or you can email us at the address on your screen. Tonight we're going to be taking a look at buying books online. Here in the first segment of the show, we've got Melissa Robertson Well, this is from barnesandnoble.com. And also we have Courtney Pulitzer, who's an interactive journalist here in the New York area, and she's going to help us understand a bit more about kind of the scene, the global picture, if you will, to buying books online. I have read a lot and tracked that the book market and the market for buying books online and consumers being willing to buy books online, it's just been going through the roof lately. It's one of the main things that people are buying online.
Yeah, it really has. What's amazing is that there's— BarnesandNoble.com, which is, you know, going to be a huge site because of their stores. But then there's also all these other sites that have been cropping up, like Books-A-Million.com and Amazon.com and Varsity Books. So all sorts of companies that are vying for the eager public.
Right, right. To try to get a share of that market.
Right.
And Melissa, of course, that's what you're trying to do. Now, we all know, and I'm going to use some dirty words here perhaps to Barnes and Noble, but we all know that Amazon.com has almost become— anybody who's following the internet industry has seen Amazon.com go through the roof. They got to market first. They have a tremendous product. They've had a lot of success. Was that a wake-up call for Barnes Noble, or why did you decide to get into the business?
Well, we wanted to make sure that we went into this business when it was right for barnesandnoble.com, and that's what we did. Um, we had all these existing channels. We had stores. We have catalogs. We have 800 numbers. And we wanted to see how the channel was gonna shake out. When the time was right, we got into it, and now we're into it in a big way.
Right, and 4.6 million titles. That's certainly being into it in a big way.
That's— And growing.
That's phenomenal. That would certainly wear your feet out if you were walking through the store.
Yes, yes.
And how's the business been going? Are you finding people, especially during the holiday season, are really taking to the internet?
Absolutely. We have record sales, record traffic right now. It's certainly, it's tracking the same way it is in all the other industries that are in this field. We're doing very well.
That's fantastic. Well, you know, on MetroByte, we like to get into like exactly what to do and how to do it.
Mm-hmm.
I'm sure around the holiday season, there are a lot of people out there who are right now clutching their remote controls and clutching their TVs saying, "Show me how to buy that last-minute gift." Right. Let's get into the site and take a look. Let's say here we have the Barnes Noble homepage up here, and if I— I've got 4.6 million titles. Let's just say I don't have the time to search through all of them in a list. I personally do, but let's say I don't.
Right.
How do I search? What are the certain— let's say I wanted to find some of the best-selling books out there right now.
Well, we have a whole area, a browse subject area, where our editors are hand-selling to you their favorite picks, the best books of these areas, so you could You could peruse all these areas and find some wonderful selections, but if you know exactly what you want, and let's say you want to read the book of the moment, which I think right now in fiction happens to be Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full.
Ah, yes.
We could go straight to A Man in Full.
Alright, now what you just did there is here, up here on the screen, and it's always available, I'm assuming, there's a search field and you can type in any keywords and it should be able to bring you to that book.
From any screen in the service, you can search an author, title, keyword, and get to the book you're looking for. And here we see A Man in Full in different formats. And let's say we pick the hardback.
Okay.
And you'll come to a screen that has the COVID it has the publishing information, it has related information. If you scroll down, you'll see a synopsis. Ah, I see. And we have quotes from other sources.
See, so now this is really, you know, one of the things we like to do is point out how is this better than just going in and doing things retail. And it's not just that it's easier and you can order books in your bunny slippers. It's that the website has a lot of information that you can't get if you just walk into the retail store. You've got the synopsis, you've got reader reviews as well. Isn't that the case?
Absolutely.
You've got pics and other sorts of things that people can see, like if they like this title, they can jump to another title.
Mm-hmm.
Courtney, is this the sort of thing that is really helping to drive sales, or are consumers really liking these sorts of features?
Oh, definitely. I mean, the more features that you can offer, the more someone will stay on your site. Which is, you know, one of the goals of any website is to keep people there.
Right, exactly.
And buying. So having more options is always better. And I mean, even how BarnesandNoble.com is expanding into software, magazines, they have a bargain book section. So that just, you know, creates this whole universe where you can spend online.
Yeah, that's great. Well, let's continue with the process here. You can also see how much money you've saved, which of course everybody likes to see. Which is important, right? We can see the book jacket, and if we want to order this, Probably, it looks like we're using a very similar thing to what a lot of places use, which is a shopping cart metaphor. Right.
It's very easy. You would click here, and this would just open up a screen where you would enter your name, your address, your credit card information. We do use secure servers, so you're protected with that information. It's encrypted. And fill in your shipping address, your billing address, and you're done. That's it.
And you're good to go. Can we take a look at some of the customer reviews? I think that's one of the more interesting areas of the site.
Absolutely. And actually, one of the— One of the classics that still does very well with customer reviews, let me see if I can get my cursor down here, is Catcher in the Rye.
Ah, a controversial book.
It's one of the ones that we all know and love, and that's true online as well. So, we go to that page.
So we're doing something similar here, which is typed in the keyword, and you're seeing how quickly and how easily you can get to these different titles.
Right. Here you'll see tons of customer reviews on this book. Ah, I see. Still creates a lot of commentary and a lot of— brings up a lot of passion.
Sure. Now, there's a method here so people can rate the book on a star method?
They can rate it from 1 to 4. Excellent. And that means from okay to really wonderful.
And then overall Barnes Noble will say the average rating on this book is—
Right. At the very top. And actually it's a pretty high rating. Average rating 4 stars.
That's pretty good. Also, author chats.
Author chats. This is a space special area of Barnes Noble that we, we're very proud of. Every, every day of the week, usually, we have an outstanding author online, and we actually had Tom Wolfe, as it shows here. He visited us, and we have about 600 author transcripts.
That's great.
So if you want to go back, if you missed a chat, here's a screen that you can go to, and you can click on just about any outstanding author that you've read recently and read their transcript and and see what they say.
That's terrific. Well, there are lots of features on the site. We want to invite people to check out barnesandnoble.com. Melissa, thanks a lot for coming on and showing us. You're welcome. It's an excellent site, and it's perfect for last-minute gift buyers.
Yes, it is.
Courtney, thanks for, thanks for coming on and helping us understand buying books online.
Thank you.
When we come back, we're going to take a look at buying your printer for your computer. Give us a call, 877-MSG-METRO. We'll answer your questions. You'll win a lovely IntelliMouse, so come on back.
