E-commerce

Earlier this month, the owners of Vertigo Books in College Park, Maryland, announced on the store blog that the indie bookstore would be closing. Many people read Vertigo's "Goodbye" post, including Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, whose piece about the closure considered the event from the perspective of a reader, book buyer, and community resident -- and included an online readers' poll about customers and indie bookstores.

Booksellers in Minnesota urged to write legislators now

On Monday, April 20, Sue Zumberge of Common Good Books in St. Paul, Minnesota, is scheduled to testify in support of Internet Sales Tax legislation at a Minnesota State Senate Taxes Committee hearing.

With a crucial hearing on California's Internet Sales Tax legislation less than two weeks away, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA), and the American Booksellers Association are strongly encouraging California booksellers to contact their state legislators to urge them to support Assembly Bi

The IndieBound.org Affiliate Program is unique in that it links to not one, but hundreds of independent bookstore websites. And this week the program, which pays generous commissions to bloggers, authors, and other website owners on sales their sites refer to independent bookstores, launched the first of several planned enhancements.

On Thursday, February 26, a group of Virginia-based independent booksellers wrote to their state leaders to urge them to enforce existing sales tax laws by requiring Amazon.com to collect and remit sales tax for sales made in Virginia. Amazon.com operates two facilities, a fulfillment center and data center, in the state.

On Wednesday, February 11, the ABA E-Commerce Solution announced the start of the migration of all store websites to Drupal, an "open-source" Content Management System (CMS). A small number of stores have been beta testing the new platform over the past several months.

On Wednesday, January 14, Sarah Pishko of Prince Books in Norfolk, Virginia, was the focus of a front-page news story in The Virginian-Pilot regarding her e-fairness efforts.

A provision in the proposed 2009 - 2010 New York State budget, unveiled by Gov. David Paterson on December 16, would significantly expand the definition of affiliate nexus for online purchases. The affiliate nexus statute is one of the ways in which Gov. Paterson is looking to close an estimated $15.4 billion budget deficit.

California's Board of Equalization (BOE) and Barnes & Noble have finalized their agreement over sales taxes owed by Barnesandnoble.com. B&N will be required to pay the state approximately $9 million in back taxes, plus penalties and interest, for failure to collect and remit sales tax, as previously reported in Bookselling This Week.

Olsson's to File Chapter 11

With creditors filing claims against the store's inventory, coupled with increased overhead, Olsson's Books & Records plans to file for Chapter 11, founder John Olsson announced on Friday, June 27, as reported by the Washington Post. The Washington, D.C. landmark has shut its Penn Quarter store and is evaluating its five remaining locations, the article noted.

The latest column by Wall Street Journal writer Lee Gomes takes a close look at what he characterizes as "an audacious legal strategy Amazon.com has used to avoid collecting sales tax" in some states where it has warehouses or distribution centers.

Last week, New York State asked Overstock.com to consolidate its lawsuit challenging the state's Internet Sales Tax provision with an earlier suit filed by Amazon.com. The case, which will be heard in New York Supreme Court, is slated to begin on Monday, July 7.

In a significant victory for California's independent booksellers, the state's Board of Equalization (BOE) and Barnes & Noble have settled two cases regarding the collection of sales and use taxes on sales made by Barnesandnoble.com. On Thursday, May 29, the California BOE affirmed and approved a settlement that has B&N paying a settlement of approximately $9 million.

Inventory uploads now free

With the launch of IndieBound last Thursday at BookExpo America, the Book Sense marketing program has been replaced with a program that's more of a movement than a marketing campaign, and this means changes for the BookSense.com program.

First and foremost, BookSense.com is not part of IndieBound, and it has been renamed the ABA E-commerce Solution. This will be visible in several ways: