The American Booksellers Association has signed a contract with developer Optaros [5] to produce a substantial upgrade to the IndieCommerce [6] platform.

Because of limited in-house staff capacity, the ABA Board of Directors approved the hiring of an outside firm at its June meeting. Requests for proposals were sent out to several developers, and Optaros submitted the winning bid. “They are an established Drupal firm with extensive e-commerce experience,” said ABA Technology Director Matt Supko.

The first phase of the upgrade will consist of improvements to the search and checkout processes on IndieCommerce websites, which were the improvements most frequently requested by IndieCommerce users.

The upgraded search results will combine all forms of a book into a single item instead of listing each ISBN separately. Consumers will be able to filter their search results by criteria including format, price, and author.

The changes to the checkout process will include allowing customers to combine different forms of payment on a single order, improvements to the in-store pick-up and payment option, and the ability to include physical books and e-books in the same order.

“These upgrades will dramatically improve the customer experience,” said Supko.