Here BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos updates booksellers on the latest improvements and enhancements to BookSense.com.

Greetings! There's a lot of BookSense.com news in this edition of "On the Move…." From new shipping options to longer timeouts to a new Levenger icon, much has happened since my last column, so let's get right to it:

1. Discounted Ground Shipping. You can now optionally offer your customers discounted ground shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount. You set both the threshold for the discount and the amount of the discount. For example, you could offer free shipping to your customers on all orders over $50, or, for all orders over $25, shipping is $1, plus $.01 per item, etc. You can call it whatever you like (e.g., "Super Saver" or "Free Shipping"), and you can activate it, deactivate it, or change the variables as often as you like.

To enable the Discounted Ground feature, on your admin homepage, click on "Shipping/Gift Wrap Settings" on the left-hand navigation bar. Click the check box next to "Discounted Ground," set the discount level, and follow the directions below.

2. Optional Shipping. You may now exclude any method of shipping other than Ground. So, for example, you can remove "International" shipping as an option if you don't want to offer overseas shipments to your customers. On the same page noted above, simply uncheck any shipping option you wish to exclude.

3. Price by Binding Type. Currently, you can discount or mark up any individual ISBN, all books on the Book Sense Bestseller List, and all books in the wholesaler discount categories. We've now added the ability to discount or mark up all books by certain binding types. For example, you could discount all mass market paperbacks and mark up all library bindings.

From your admin page, click on "Edit Storewide Pricing" and follow the directions.

4. Local Store Inventory Bug Fixed. For those of you uploading your own inventory, we've now fixed the bug that was preventing non-book items from showing an "On Our Shelves Now" inventory status.

5. Timeout Lengthened. At BookExpo America, many of you commented that too often you would pause in your work for a few moments, come back to the computer, click on something, and be thrown back to the login screen. This happens because our system has a set number of minutes it allows any session to be idle. We do this for reasons of both security and efficiency. However, we did feel it would be safe to lengthen the waiting period, so now your session can remain idle for 45 minutes before it will be terminated.

6. Report Bugs. There were several changes and bug fixes made to the site reports -- accessible from the "View Site Reports" link on the top of your admin homepage. Most notably, the system will now add orders to reports based on their closing date rather than their creation date. This is particularly important for the "Affiliate Sales Report," as affiliate sales will now show up in the month in which they were closed.

7. Levenger. The Levenger icon now opens Levenger.com in a separate window. When customers are done shopping, your window will still be open in the background.

8. Book Image Alignment. Book images now align with the top of feature sections in your local content, rather than in the middle.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] [4] or call BookSense.com customer service at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1234, or send an e-mail to [email protected] [5].

Thanks!
Len