BookSense.com joins at least one other effort to provide independent bookstores with an affordable, easy-to-use online retailing presence.
The BookSite Network (Bookselling, Feb. 15), founded and developed by independent bookseller Dick Harte in 1996, is a turnkey system that provides booksellers with a customizable Web storefront, two 500,000-title databases licensed from Ingram and Baker &Taylor, digitized marketing materials, an e-mail forum and more. BookSite allows booksellers to set up a free trial site and is located at www.booksite.com.
According to Harte, the BookSite Network currently supports about 100 independent booksellers. Something of an evangelist in support of independent stores utilizing the Web, Harte said he welcomed BookSense: "We need more than one e-commerce approach for booksellers. When their site is completed, it will give booksellers a choice between two systems."
