I can't wait to see what search engines do with some of these quotes taken out of context.
[obligatory link to the weekly rankings under discussion]
It took me a while but I’ve finally found a replacement for Books-a-Million:
Even when I drop a site, it’s not like an xgf where I cut all ties, change my cell phone number, and set up an email filter to automatically bounce anything with her name in it. (…more effective and satisfying than you might think)
With websites — I stay in touch. I stop by on occasion. And while I’m as harsh as I need to be with the criticism before the break-up, if and when conditions improve I’m usually also the first to acknowledge positive change and to support it.
Last week Books-a-Million launched a new online retail site, and while nothing here is revolutionary there is also something to be said for performing to spec on concept — that is to say, not screwing anything up. The new BAMM site isn’t screwing anything up.
I ran the site through it’s paces over the weekend, searching for more manga than probably the next 1000 customers combined, and managed to get the new booksamillion.com to spit up the information I need for the charts in about 3 seconds.
I don’t know if the old problems will return (‘bestseller’ rankings that never update and include sales info from 18 months ago) but a new site means that the data is also sparkly and new, and a welcome addition to the charts
##
While we’re looking at Books-a-Million:
from the 2008 Annual Report [pdf]
2006
total sales $496.6M
.com sales $27.6M
2007
total sales $512.9M
.com sales $26.0M
year-to-year gains
total sales $16.3M (3.28%)
.com sales -$1.6M (-5.80%)
(for reference, over the same period: bn.com sales of $476M in ’07, up 9.93%; amazon grossed $4630 — yes, 4.6 billion dollars — up 29.3%)
Books-a-Million, 2008 year to date (26 weeks ending Aug 2) sales are down 4.3%; the Q2 results (just the last 13 weeks) are even worse, with sales down 7.5% compared to the same period last year. Ouch. (The comp numbers are going to be off for every bookstore this year though: Last year the Q2 numbers included Harry Potter 7; the bar was set rather high.)
I wasn’t the only person to notice that while online retail generally is en fuego, the old BAMM.com dropped the ball and actually *lost* ground in 2007.
So they bit the bullet and decided to invest a half million to revamp the website.
Well, they don’t say that: If you read the fine print on the Q1 2008 SEC filing, (page 19) you can see that operating income from the Electronic Commerce Trade Segment dropped from $617,000 down to $4,000 (yes, 4k, not a typo) due to one-time charges related to “increased employee bonus expense and increased website maintenance expense”.
That is to say, starting back in February or April they took every dime the website was making and turned it over, re-investing it to make a better website. This is smart twice over: first, the e-commerce chunk doesn’t become a money pit siphoning cash from the brick-and-mortar biz; it has to make it on it’s own merits — and second, well, they had to do something. $26 million is a nice chunk (I’ll take it pleaseandthankyou) but when your top ranked competitor is raking in 178 times that much and your own market share is slipping? Changing the colour scheme and making the logo look web2.0 is the least you can do.
The new website might have been up for quite a while; I just happened to come across it Saturday morning. (The web design co. they hired started bragging about it on Wednesday.)
RocketBomber: “We read boring financial reports so you don’t have to!” (sm)
##
At this point in the commentary, I usually finish up with the ‘analysis’ and some sort of chart. That’s because math gets me wet and I just love long hard pulls from the database and intrusive, inquiring probes into its nether regions until some previously untried technique causes the data to give up and fall over itself into a new and even more revealing position.
Yeah, yeah: I think we all know that I’ve been spending way too much looking at online manga sales data.
That, and yet another list is a cheap ‘n’ easy way to look really smart while just doing the same thing over and over again (the same method: different weekly application). You could do the same thing, if you were tracking 7 different attributes of 3500+ titles on a weekly basis. I mean, it’s *easy*. [*snicker*]
Anyway, here’s your chart.
The Bleeding Edge: new manga, new to the charts this week.
(a top 25)
438. ↑new (0) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 2 – Seven Seas, Aug 2008 [66.8] ::
535. ↑new (0) : S.A (Special A) 6 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2008 [46.1] ::
537. ↑new (0) : Wanted – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2008 [46] ::
651. ↑new (0) : Aspirin 1 – Tokyopop, Aug 2008 [26.2] ::
666. ↑new (0) : Monkey High! 3 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2008 [24.6] ::
681. ↑new (0) : Blood+ 3 – Dark Horse, Aug 2008 [22] ::
692. ↑new (0) : Grenadier 7 – Tokyopop, Aug 2008 [20.4] ::
695. ↑new (0) : Tenjho Tenge 17 – CMX, Aug 2008 [20.1] ::
728. ↑new (0) : Knights 2 – DMP, Oct 2008 [16.8] ::
790. ↑new (0) : Maid in Heaven – Aurora Deux, Aug 2008 [12.6] ::
815. ↑new (0) : Heavenly Body – Aurora Deux, Aug 2008 [11.1] ::
835. ↑new (0) : Hayate the Combat Butler 9 – Viz, Nov 2008 [9.7] ::
839. ↑new (0) : Mushishi 6 – Del Rey, Nov 2008 [9.6] ::
854. ↑new (0) : Monochrome Factor 4 – Tokyopop, Dec 2008 [9.2] ::
857. ↑new (0) : King of Thorn 6 – Tokyopop, Nov 2008 [9.1] ::
878. ↑new (0) : Jyu-Oh-Sei 1 – Tokyopop, Aug 2008 [8.5] ::
891. ↑new (0) : Hotel Africa 2 – Tokyopop, Aug 2008 [8.3] ::
893. ↑new (0) : Love*com 8 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2008 [8.2] ::
902. ↑new (0) : Two of Hearts – Aurora Deux, Aug 2008 [7.7] ::
909. ↑new (0) : Mushishi 5 – Del Rey, Aug 2008 [7.5] ::
946. ↑new (0) : Blank Slate 1 – Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2008 [6.5] ::
955. ↑new (0) : I Wish 2 – Tokyopop, Jun 2008 [6.2] ::
966. ↑new (0) : Blank Slate 2 – Viz Shojo Beat, Dec 2008 [5.8] ::
973. ↑new (0) : Crayon Shinchan 3 – CMX, Jul 2008 [5.6] ::
1099. ↑new (0) : Avalon: Web of Magic 4 – Seven Seas, Jul 2008 [3] ::
