CROSS:SCAN vs. STATS: 'There Is No Battle'

by Lynn Garrett, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 2/8/2006

One subject getting plenty of attention at CBA Advance was the collection of sales data from Christian stores. Last September CBA announced it was launching its own data collection program, CROSS:SCAN, seemingly in competition with the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's STATS program.

Said CBA president Bill Anderson, "STATS was designed for and by publishers to meet their needs. CROSS:SCAN is of, by, and for the retailers."

In contrast to STATS, Anderson said, with CROSS:SCAN "suppliers will have access only to their own company's data. Our retailers think that with STATS's more open approach [of aggregating data for all publishers] they're supplying data that is used as intelligence to make competition tougher. Wal-Mart doesn't let its information be used to help Target to grow."

Kelly Gallagher, v-p for business development for ECPA, said that while he understood that security of data was an issue for retailers, the only way it could become a competitive threat to Christian stores would be "if a supplier acted improperly and shared it beyond the channel. We don't believe this has happened." Nor does he think it is likely. "If they were found out, that supplier would be excluded from the data loop. And why would the company they leaked the information to ever trust them with their own data?"

Still, Anderson said, "Retailers have been observing things that make them think their data is being used in other channels. For example, I believe consultants can purchase STATS data." Gallagher responded, "Consultants may only subscribe to and use STATS exclusively with and for those Christian publishers for which they are doing business who are also STATS subscribers. They are not permitted in any way to publish or distribute information gained from STATS without express written permission."

Just before Advance, ECPA announced that STATS would morph into a new program called Pubtrack, a joint project of ECPA, Bowker and Information Resource Technology, which provides POS systems in the Christian and general markets. With Pubtrack, Gallagher said, "the retailer will be in the driver's seat as far as how their data can be used—there's no boilerplate [in the contract] like there was with STATS." The other most significant change is that "Pubtrack provides a streamlined connection for direct, exclusive access. Retailers will be able to provide reports to all their accounts through one point of entry."

Gallagher pointed out, "There is a risk-reward opportunity in sharing any data. Retailers also have access to all the data, so if they want to look at the performance of books from a certain publisher in a specific category, they can do that to make buying decisions, instead of relying on a sales rep's pitch." He noted, "There are also risks for publishers—other publishers get to see hard data about the performance of primary authors, and they might decide to go after them. They can see which price points seem to work best and become more competitive that way."

Anderson was looking forward to seeing a demonstration of Pubtrack. "I don't have enough information yet to see whether it will adequately address retailers' concerns." In any case, he added, "There is no battle without opposing objectives, and I see CBA and ECPA as having the same basic objective—to sell more Christian books—although obviously they are looking beyond the CBA channel." He added, "Stores are already reporting data to different places—to publishers, to BookScan. They can do it with a few keystrokes. So they won't need to choose between CROSS:SCAN and Pubtrack."