Cyber Monday Spells Good News for Dot Com B'sellers

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 12/1/2005

Cyber Monday proved a boost for online booksellers, and they are hopeful the gains bode well for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

At Alibris, COO Brian Elliott confirmed that things had gone "darn well" over the long weekend. While Elliott had predicted this year's Cyber Monday sales would be up 50% over last year's, he said business had more than doubled for the day. Overall, Alibris saw a 70% rise in business for the holiday weekend, with sales of both new and used books selling well.

Among Alibris's hottest titles were Europe Central (William T. Vollmann's recent NBA fiction winner) and The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook with Alibris selling lots of new editions since Elliott said there are not enough used copies to fill demand . Perennial favorites 1776, and Who Moved My Cheese moved along steadily in both new and used, while used books were popular for some out of print titles such as Johnny Cash's autobiography Man in Black and Jack Dunphy's Dear Genius: A Memoir of My Life With Truman Capote.

At Abebooks.com, another online storefront for new and used books, publicity manager Richard Davies said Cyber Monday proved to be another busy start to the week. "In reality, every Monday is a Cyber Monday for Abebooks," Davies said. "It's almost as if buyers spend the weekend listening to recommendations from friends or reading the book review sections, and then log on at lunchtime." Abebooks saw a more significant up-tick in business on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, with sales up that day 30% over the same day the previous year. According to Davies, Saturdays and Sundays are usually slow—he presumes many of his customer prefer to shop from the office—so he was particularly enthused to see the weekend business up.

The popular titles at Abebooks proved less surprising than those at Alibris with the memoir of Oprah darling James Frey, A Million Little Pieces, a popular pick along with various Harry Potter titles (a result of, according to Davies, the latest Potter film). Abebooks customers also snatched up various C.S. Lewis titles no doubt also tied to the upcoming release of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In general, both used and new titles sold in equal quantities, Davies said.

At BN.com, a statement was released tracking some of the most popular items on Monday, though no stats were offered about business on the whole. Among the top ten bestselling books at the online giant were two cookbooks and a familiar memoir: Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats—A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners, The Silver Spoon and, once again, A Million Little Pieces.