IndieCommunication: Event Ticketing, Cart Options, One-on-Ones, and More

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Here’s the IndieCommunication e-newsletter for Friday, September 27:

Consider Event Ticketing Services for Major Events

Roll of ticketsSo you’ve got a major event coming up with an A-list author who has tweeted the event out to her millions of followers. The buzz about this event is off the charts and you are expecting tickets to sell out within minutes of offering them on your IndieCommerce site. This is what is known as a flash sale and has brought some pretty robust websites to their knees.

The IndieCommerce system works very well for 95 percent of the events hosted by our members, but it is really not designed to manage high-demand flash sales like the one described above. If you feel an upcoming event might become a high-volume flash sale, consider using a third-party service, such as Eventbrite or a similar event ticketing service. These services are specifically designed to handle ticketing for these types of events. Questions? E-mail [email protected].

New Shopping Cart Option

With this new option, when a customer clicks the “Add to Cart” button, they stay on the page rather than being sent to a shopping cart page.

This will make it easier for customers to continue shopping and add more items to their cart. Available on IndieCommerce; coming soon to IndieLite. To use this feature, visit store -> configuration -> cart, and set “Add to cart redirect” to “<none>.”

Illustration of what happens when a customer adds a book to their shopping cart (where it says "X Novel added to your shopping cart")

Meet IndieCommerce Staff at the Fall Regional Shows

NEIBA: October 2–4, Providence, Rhode Island
Sign up for IndieCommerce one-on-one sessions at NEIBA here.

Heartland: October 2–4, Cleveland, Ohio
Sign up for IndieCommerce one-on-one sessions at the Heartland Fall Forum here.

PNBA: October 6–8, Portland, Oregon
Sign up for IndieCommerce one-on-one sessions at PNBA here.

MPIBA: October 10–12, Denver, Colorado
Sign up for IndieCommerce one-on-one sessions at MPIBA here.

NAIBA: October 15–17, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Sign up for IndieCommerce one-on-one sessions at NAIBA here.

IndieCommerce Institute (ICI) Will Be at Winter Institute

IndieCommerce button on keyboard with shopping cart full of books on top of itThe IndieCommerce Institute at Wi15, to be held Tuesday, January 21, will feature a seminar for IndieLite stores and a separate seminar for IndieCommerce stores. Registration for ICI will open on October 29.


Booksellers are encouraged to send their thoughts, questions, or suggestions via e-mail to IndieCommerce staff at any time.

Past editions of IndieCommunication are available on the IndieCommerce Updates page on BookWeb.org.