News

Random House in Deal With Online Wholesaler
Jim Milliot -- 10/2/00

In order to give a boost to some of its specialty books, Random House has reached an agreement with Buylink Corp., a South San Francisco, Calif.-based online B2B wholesale marketplace, to post about 2,400 titles at www.buylink.com. Buylink has a network of more than 9,100 registered specialty retailers who can view the cover of each book, a product description and all necessary ordering information. Books featured on the Buylink site include titles in such categories as entertaining, arts and crafts, antiques and collectibles, cooking, holidays and travel.

Buylink d s not charge its vendors for posting their products, but rather makes its money from transactions as well as from other services such as offering premium placement opportunities. "We act as a low-cost sales rep," Brian Dunning, cofounder and chief technology officer at Buylink, told PW, noting that vendors pay a 9% commission on orders placed through the site. Approximately 95% of Buylink's retailers are bricks-and-mortar stores, with e-retailers constituting the balance. Retailers are alerted to products that they may be interested in by account managers. Vendors can add and subtract products as they wish.

Buylink has more than 3,500 vendors using its service, including a number of small book distributors and publishers. According to the company, sales have risen an average of 821% per month since the company first began offering transactions through its site in March 1998.