Used Book Sales Soar at Alibris with Coremetrics Web Analytics

A/B Testing Helps Alibris Reach New Segments of Used Book Customers

San Mateo , Calif.—January 25, 2006—Coremetrics™, the leading provider of hosted web analytics and precision marketing solutions, today announced that Alibris, the premiere destination for used, new, and out-of-print books, is using the Coremetrics A/B testing platform to improve visitor conversion and site usage. One of Internet Retailer's "Top 100" largest online retailers, Alibris is the choice of millions of book lovers looking to buy rare and used books.

"When you have over 50 million books, helping a customer find a signed copy of an out-of-print book can be a challenge. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our user experience and make Alibris the easiest place to buy used books," said Brian Elliott, chief operating officer at Alibris. "A/B testing lets us manage risk by measuring customer demand earlier in our development process. Rather than rely on subjective evaluations, we can use Coremetrics to quantify the impact on visitor conversion before committing additional resources."

Coremetrics offers the only hosted web analytics and precision marketing solution designed to meet the marketing, merchandising, and site-design needs of online retailers. Alibris used Coremetrics A/B testing and real estate reporting to see if changing the presentation of its Narrow your results search functionality would increase usage. Moving the option to a more prominent position had a dramatic impact—500 percent more clicks and a 400 percent increase in sales. Before the change, only a fraction of Alibris customers used the powerful search tool. Today, far more customers use the tool to refine their search results by book attributes such as signed, hardcover, or first edition. Coremetrics reports also uncovered the need to refine the search tool's language to help customers find that special hard-to-find book.

"Alibris is committed to connecting people who love books with independent professional booksellers from around the world," said Joe Davis, president and CEO of Coremetrics. "We are pleased to be providing technologies that help the company's web team members analyze customer behavior so they can understand and address the needs of those customers and their reseller partners. Our solutions enable Alibris to continuously identify small changes that enhance the visitor experience and make it easier for people to buy the books they love." 

About Alibris

Alibris connects people who love books to thousands of independent booksellers from around the world. One of Internet Retailer's "Top 100" online retailers, Alibris employs proprietary technology and advanced logistics to offer more than 60 million used, new, and out-of-print books to millions of consumers, libraries, and retailers. Alibris is a rapidly growing business with strategic partnerships with the best and largest players in the bookselling industry.

About Coremetrics
Coremetrics is the leading provider of on-demand web analytics and precision marketing solutions, offering the industry's only web analytics platform that captures and stores all customer and visitor clickstream activity to build LIVE (Lifetime Individual Visitor Experience) Profiles. Representing the single most accurate and comprehensive source of online customer data, LIVE Profiles serve as the foundation for all successful eBusiness initiatives. Leading online brands rely on Coremetrics LIVE Profiles to monitor and optimize the performance of multiple marketing campaigns, improve cross-sell and multichannel initiatives, and precisely target customers through intelligent marketing campaigns. Coremetrics services more than 600 brands and has delivered over $300 million in documented ROI in the past two years. The company is privately held with funding from Accel Partners and Highland Capital Partners and is headquartered in San Mateo , California with offices in Austin , Texas and London , England . To learn more about Coremetrics, visit www.coremetrics.com or call 877-721-CORE.

 

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