The new law to provide ISBN numbers for all college courses prior to the beginning of classes opens up many opportunities for textbook companies – both publishers and resellers. Online textbook providers(resellers) – textbooks.com, abebooks, amazon and chegg just to name a few – have been at this for a few years and understand their customer. They understand the need to attract a student early in their college career, offer promotional discounts at key times, provide up to date information on price/availability and deliver as promised. Many of these resellers are in the business of transactions so they prefer not to talk with you directly, but do offer live chat 24/7.
This year book publishing companies seem to be struggling with how they fit into the picture now that so many additional opportunities are available for student’s to purchase books outside of the college bookstore. Publisher’s traditionally have focused only on their direct relationship with bookstore’s since they can control the number of new and used books shipped to each location – thus they control price and profit. Given the shift, publisher’s are now looking at selling textbook’s direct to students. Pearson’s who represent 12 academic publishers is one such company who is struggling to find there spot in this new environment.
Pearson’s has decided they want part of the direct sell online market – but they are unprepared to compete against the reseller who is far ahead of the learning curve. In trying to order from them this semester, I have learned that I can order direct for less than purchasing the book in a college bookstore (I certainly would not be to happy if I was a stakeholder at Follett to learn they were trying to bypass me after years of buying and distributing their products).
But after ordering the next trick is to get it delivered (maybe they do understand the relationship with bookstore’s). Purchased on a Tuesday with second day shipping, the product was to arrive on a Friday. Late Friday, my account status tells me that information had not changed since the order was placed on Tuesday. No live chat (well I should clarify they had an educator’s chat they I have access to as a professor and the individual I chatted with claimed ignorance in providing any useful information) no telephone number available – just an email address. The beauty is that when you send an email, you do get a standard response that they are available to answer emails Monday thru Friday from 9am to 5 pm. Do they really want to be in direct book selling business?
I quickly realized on my own that the reason the book did not arrive as scheduled was that it was never shipped as promised even when I agreed to the additional shipping charges. I contacted my credit card company to refuse any payment to Pearson – because who knows when they will get around to answering my email – and the rep from American Express and I agreed that if you don’t understand how to handle online customer service then you shouldn’t be in the business. That is the key – fulfilling the expectations of the customer.
In any company a product or service should only be launched once you have assessed the market and its competition. If Pearson’s had completed this basic task they would have learned that their is training and investment required to take a product direct to the consumer. Maybe they did do the research. But they did not implement what was needed to support online purchases prior to releasing this channel to the customer. This is a dangerous position to take in today’s world when social media provides the opportunity for existing customers to communicate directly with current and prospective customers.
Pearson’s need to determine what market they want and how they can strategically position themselves to excel. Entering a segment without proper market planning can have serious repercussions.
