Prepress

Nebraska Book Company Launches NBC Marketplace PowerBuyer(TM)

Tuesday 10. March 2009 - Patent-pending Software Provides Bookstores a New Way to Grow Used Textbook Supply

Nebraska Book Company, a national leader in the college bookstore industry, today unveiled its patent-pending process and software, NBC Marketplace PowerBuyer. The solution provides a powerful tool for college bookstores to evaluate and purchase text and/or trade books on the student-to-student marketplaces like Amazon and Half.com through a fully automated and extremely quick process.

Through NBC Marketplace PowerBuyer, bookstores simply identify a want list automatically via NBC WebPRISM integration or through an easy-to-use data import tool. The system then automatically compares the offer prices with the maximum and minimum prices set up in the bookstore’s buy list, and then, it purchases the best available offer. Further, the system provides post-purchase management tools to assist the bookstore with tracking, reimbursement and order receiving.

NBC Marketplace PowerBuyer:
— Runs every offer through a patent-pending algorithm using a customized set of the bookstore’s conditions – including blacklists, seller profiling and keyword/edition filters.
— Continues to quickly locate and evaluate offers across all supported channels until the bookstore’s want list is fulfilled – evaluating offers at a rate of 3,600 evaluations per hour.
— Makes the purchase automatically with the payment method selected by the bookstore and requests that the purchase be shipped directly to the bookstore.
— Closes the loop with important post-purchase management functionality.

Barry S. Major, President and Chief Operating Officer, Nebraska Book Company, said: “The online marketplace has been a growing source for used textbooks, however, it’s been inaccessible to bookstores. NBC Marketplace PowerBuyer changes that. It provides bookstores an automated, efficient way to build their used textbook inventory using the most popular student-to-student Internet marketplaces which will result in lower textbook prices for students.”