Publishing, bookselling and the World Wide Web

Reports research into the ways the publishing and bookselling industries are using the World Wide Web, based on samples drawn from the bookselling and publishing categories in the Yahoo! search engine directory and a survey of the sites. Reports results of a questionnaire survey sent to the identified companies in the hope that it would be possible to establish how these industries were using the Web and, by comparing the data with the results from the reexamination of the earlier sites, to be able to see how similar, or dissimilar, the book trades’ use of the Web is to other industrial sectors. The study formed part of a continuing investigation into the business use of the World Wide Web. It is concluded that publishers and booksellers are clearly committed to online selling and, since over a third of publishers are selling online, calls into question claims that they are unwilling to alienate bookstores by selling direct to customers. The majority of booksellers are actively engaging in online selling. Only 15 per cent of Web sites have electronic mail ordering and e-mail ordering appears to be increasingly replaced by online forms.