Fact Sheets

Borders.com Vendor Alliances

ALIBRIS

Alibris is the provider of used, rare and out-of-print books for Borders.com.

• More than 75 million used, rare and out-of-print books as well as college text books, bargain books, and movies and music items are available from Alibris for customers to purchase.

• By clicking on the “used book” tab at Borders.com, customers can access the Borders Marketplace where they can peruse titles, view top sellers, compare prices, and place their orders directly with Alibris, which manages inventory, provides customer service, and fulfills and ships all orders directly to customers.
  

• All Alibris sellers are required to maintain strict codes of service to ensure customers receive a satisfactory experience each time they order from Alibris.

About Alibris
Alibris is the premiere marketplace for independent buyers and sellers of new and used books, music items, and movies, as well as rare and out-of-print titles. We connect people who love books, music, and movies to the best independent sellers from 45 countries around the world. Our proprietary technology and advanced logistics allow us to offer more than 75 million used, new, and out-of-print titles to consumers, libraries, and retailers, which include Borders, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Blackwell UK, Books-A-Million, Chapters/Indigo, and Half.com. Founded in 1998 and acquired by Oak Hill Capital Partners in 2006, Alibris was named a "Fast 50" and a "Technology Fast 500" growth business by Deloitte. Alibris is a registered trademark.

ALLURENT

Allurent provides the complete technology platform for the Magic Shelf™, the most prominent feature on the Borders.com homepage. Capturing the essence of the Borders store experience, the Magic Shelf enables customers to easily view books, music, DVD and children’s titles, much the way they explore the book tables, displays and shelves in their favorite Borders stores. Once customers have found items of interest on the Magic Shelf, they easily add those items to their shopping cart, all without leaving the Magic Shelf. 

• Allurent has equipped the Magic Shelf with Web 2.0 functionality including product quick views, a rich merchandising display with elegant navigation aids, and an administration dashboard that enables Borders’ merchandising experts to easily update the products available on the Magic Shelf. The “Picked for You” feature within the Magic Shelf, created by the Borders team, is an advanced personalization tool that allows customers to personalize the Magic Shelf with their own preferences based on the topic categories in which they are interested, whether mystery books, jazz, foreign films or a number of other categories. All the features work together seamlessly to provide an engaging customer shopping experience. 

• Borders first teamed with Allurent to enhance the Magic Shelf after it was being piloted on the beta version of Borders.com. Based on initial customer feedback on the usability of the beta Magic Shelf, Borders worked with Allurent to make the Shelf more intuitive for customers, including making it easier to quickly buy items or add them to a wish list without leaving the Magic Shelf experience. Allurent designed and implemented other enhancements to the Magic Shelf including improving its search and navigation by adding the ability to click and drag the shelf to explore, creating an easy-to-use menu of category interests on the left hand side, and enabling shoppers to browse the next items in the shelf from within the quick view feature that provides concise product information.

About Allurent

Leading retailers like Anthropologie, Borders®, Kohl’s^TM, and Urban Outfitters partner with Allurent to create the most compelling online shopping experiences imaginable. Its innovative e-commerce products deliver rich interactions throughout the shopping lifecycle, from browsing to choosing to buying. The result is a superior shopping experience leading to more satisfied customers and greater sales. Allurent’s deep experience developing world-class e-commerce software helps the company deliver intuitive and engaging products that are easily configured to match a retailer’s brand and integrate with their existing e-commerce infrastructure. Allurent is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. For additional information please visit www.allurent.com.

Baker & Taylor

Fulfillment for Borders.com will be handled primarily by Baker & Taylor:

• Baker & Taylor maintains an inventory of more than 700,000 book, 260,000 music and 70,000 movie titles.

• The company has five regional facilities across the U.S. enabling fast order fulfillment and shipment to Borders customers nationwide within hours of receiving and processing an order.

About Baker & Taylor, Inc.

Baker & Taylor, Inc. (www.btol.com) is a global information and entertainment services company that offers books, videos, music, games and services to libraries, educational institutions, and retailers. Based in Charlotte, N.C., the company has been in existence for over 179 years, developing long-term relationships with major suppliers, including book publishers, movie studios, and music labels. Baker & Taylor maintains the largest combined in-stock book, video and music inventory in the world, and services the broadest customer base in the industry. Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., a leading private equity investment firm.

OMNITURE

Omniture’s Web analytics enable Borders to understand how customers are interacting with and responding to campaigns, offers and other key features of the site in order to provide a relevant online experience and drive maximum ROI. Borders employs the following solutions:

• SiteCatalyst®—Borders employed SiteCatalyst to measure customer satisfaction with the Magic Shelf™, search and navigation, and other key features that were being piloted on the Borders.com beta site. By understanding how customers were responding to these features, Borders was able to enhance them before ultimately making them part of Borders.com. Post launch, SiteCatalyst will allow Borders to continue to measure in real time ongoing customer satisfaction with the site and make enhancements as necessary. 

• Omniture Discover®—Borders is using Omniture Discover to segment customer behavior according to a variety of criteria such as search topic interests, purchasing behavior and geographic region to personalize the online experience to match customer interests. 

• Using SiteCatalyst and Discover will allow Borders to measure its cross-channel marketing strategies, tying together online initiatives with customer usage of Borders.com via in-store kiosks.

About Omniture

Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture’s software, which it hosts and delivers to its customers as an on-demand subscription service and on-premise solution, enables customers to capture, store and analyze information generated by their Web sites and other sources and to gain critical business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. In addition, Omniture offers a range of professional services that complement its online services, including implementation, best practices, consulting, customer support and user training through Omniture University™. Omniture’s more than 4,500 customers include eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, Oracle, General Motors, Sony and HP. www.omniture.com.

BILL ME LATER

Bill Me Later® is the alternative payment solution provider for Borders.com, giving customers who are shy about sharing their credit card information a secure and convenient way to make purchases online.

• Bill Me Later® is now accepted as the alternative payment option for Borders.com customers providing a secure and convenient way to make purchases online without using their credit cards. Customers can access the Bill Me Later option on the checkout page of Borders.com. First time users of Bill Me Later simply provide their birth date and last four digits of their social security number. After accepting the terms and conditions, an instant credit check (in less than three seconds) is performed. Approved customers can immediately complete their Borders.com purchase and may then use Bill Me Later for future purchases.

• Bill Me Later® funds Borders immediately and the customer receives a bill for their purchase via email or U.S. Mail within ten days. Customers can pay the bill in full with no interest fees or additional charges, or they can choose to make monthly payments with interest. For purchases of $99 or more, Bill Me Later offers Borders.com customers a convenient 90 day financing option—No Payments for 90 Days!  This option gives customers 90 days to pay off their purchase in full without interest or monthly payment.

• More than 4 million consumers use Bill Me Later®. Borders is one of 800+ retailers, airlines and travel partners that offer Bill Me Later as an alternative payment solution.

About Bill Me Later

Bill Me Later, Inc. is a rapidly growing technology company helping to connect leading merchants with high value customers by improving the purchase experience. Bill Me Later, Inc.’s payment and marketing technology solutions help establish and maintain trusted relationships between hundreds of top tier retailers and high value customers at the point-of-sale. Millions of consumers rely on the safety and convenience of Bill Me Later, Inc.’s payment solutions when shopping online, via phone and in-store. The solutions are the first new payment methods since credit cards to be so broadly available within the United States. For more information, visit www.billmelater.com.

BRULANT

Brulant is Border's online technology partner for Borders.com including Web and application development work enabled through IBM's WebSphere Commerce platform.

• Brulant's work with Borders includes ultimately putting Borders in a position where it will own its brand online, its site and therefore its customers. With the WebSphere Commerce solution, Borders will now be able to directly fulfill customer needs online and therefore create deeper and more meaningful relationships with its customers over time. Specific functionality includes enabling the shopping cart, promotions, account maintenance, integration with Borders' Rewards Loyalty Program, SKU management, as well as support of merchandising and marketing efforts.

• The Brulant team includes both individuals "stationed" out of Borders’ headquarters as well as additional team members located in Brulant's Commerce Solution Center (CSC) in Cleveland, OH. Brulant has the largest group of WebSphere Commerce professionals in the country, other than IBM itself.
  

• Brulant worked directly with the Borders' e-Commerce business team to help leverage the capabilities of WebSphere Commerce through its years of real-time experience with the product.

About Brulant

Brulant is one of the nation’s leading interactive marketing firms infused with deep technology horsepower. Brulant is in a unique position in the market … there are right brain firms who focus on creative results and there are left brain firms who focus on quantitative results. Brulant is a “whole-brain” firm.  Brulant is capable of delivering the most powerful technology solutions with all of the creativity and marketing focus of an interactive agency, and all of the strategy and business approach of a management consulting firm.  For more information, visit us at www.brulant.com.

CHOICESTREAM

ChoiceStream provides personalized product recommendation technology for Borders.com.

• ChoiceStream’s merchandising solution, RealRelevance Retail Suite, enables Borders to provide customers with relevant product recommendations tailored specifically to their interest and shopping tendencies.

• Customers are provided with personalized recommendations at crucial junctures during a visit to Borders.com including relevant “up sells” on product detail pages, cross sells in the shopping cart, and “next sells” on the order confirmation page.

• Using ChoiceStream’s recommendations expertise, Borders provides a personalized shopping experience for every customer that is informed by the customer’s online purchasing history.

About ChoiceStream
ChoiceStream is the premier personalization service provider for the world’s largest eretail,entertainment, TV and mobile brands, including Comcast, Borders, AT&T, DirecTV, AOL, Blockbuster, Yahoo!, and Overstock.com. Recently named the company with the “deepest experience” and the “largest and longest-standing of the ‘pure-play’ personalization engines” by Forrester Research, ChoiceStream enables customers to put the right products in front of the right shoppers at the right time to maximize the value of every interaction with their consumers.

 

COMMISSION JUNCTION

As the leading affiliate marketing network, Commission Junction provides Borders with the consultative services and technology required for a successful affiliate program.

• In an affiliate marketing program, the affiliate (also called the publisher) promotes the products and services of Borders (the advertiser) in exchange for a commission on realized sales. 

• Commission Junction, through its extensive affiliate network, gives Borders access to thousands of affiliates, creating widespread exposure for the Borders brand on the Internet and driving revenue that is low risk and cost efficient because Borders pays a commission to the publisher only when a consumer purchases a Borders product.

• Commission Junction provides performance metrics for Borders on all publishers who feature Borders' promotions and also provides metrics on the promotions, which enables Borders to fine tune its marketing strategies to drive more revenue.

About Commission Junction
Commission Junction (www.cj.com), a division of ValueClick, is a global leader in the online advertising channels of affiliate marketing and managed search. By facilitating strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, Commission Junction helps its clients achieve lower acquisition costs, increased profits and sustained revenue.

 

ENDECA

Endeca provides integrated search, Guided Navigation and merchandising for Borders.com—giving customers the ability to browse and find Borders products by the criteria that matter most to them, while giving Borders the ability to create targeted promotions based on what shoppers are looking for.   

• Endeca’s search and Guided Navigation technology gives shoppers the ability to refine searches and browse products using criteria like type (book, CD, DVD), author, genre, price range, and more.

• This search and navigation technology is integrated with merchandising tools so as a shopper searches for a book, author, movie, etc., they are shown related products (best sellers, featured items, up-sells, cross-sells).

About Endeca
Endeca’s innovative information access software helps people explore, analyze, and understand complex information, guiding them to unexpected insights and better decisions.  The Endeca Information Access Platform, built around a new class of access-optimized database, powers applications that combine the ease of searching and browsing with the analytical power of business intelligence. More than 500 leading global organizations including ABN AMRO, Boeing, Cox Newspapers, the (U.S.) Defense Intelligence Agency, Dell, Ford Motor Company, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, the Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs, and streamline operations.

Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, USA, Endeca is a private company with worldwide operations. For more information: www.endeca.com or info@endeca.com.

 

STERLING COMMERCE

Sterling Commerce is providing market-leading order management capabilities to Borders Direct LLC that enable and support complex cross-channel selling and fulfillment. 

Specifically, Sterling Order Management helps Borders:

• Orchestrate the enterprise order management process, providing a single view of the order and facilitating order brokering and proactive event\alert management.

• “Save the sale” by providing available-to-promise inventory visibility at the point of order and end-to-end processing of the order through Borders’ complex fulfillment network.

• Achieve better branding at the lowest cost through sophisticated sourcing and customer order allocation rules.

About Sterling Commerce
Only Sterling Commerce brings together the power of community, internal and external integration, and cross-channel applications that are necessary to effectively address the visibility and management gaps of a retailers’ fulfillment processes.  Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people and technology.  More than 30,000 customers worldwide – including 80 percent of the Fortune 500 – use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, and supply chain fulfillment to improve profitability inside and outside their company walls.  Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 19 countries and most major cities around the world.  More information on the company can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com.

 

360i

360i manages digital marketing for Borders as the digital agency of record:

• 360i’s services include for Borders.com Search Engine Marketing (SEM), display media, as well as emerging media to ensure Borders has a strong presence in the digital landscape.

• 360i brings an integrated mix of digital tactics to support the Borders e-Commerce site launch by establishing a strong brand presence in the digital landscape while driving maximum revenue and store foot traffic.

• 360i’s services include paid and natural search engine marketing tactics, display and advanced behavioral targeting, various social and emerging media strategies, advanced analytics and cross channel and customer insights.

About 360i
360i is a digital agency with circles of excellence in search, behavioral marketing and social media. Started in 1998, 360i has emerged as one of the leading digital agencies with a core focus, concepting, producing, executing, analyzing and optimizing integrated digital marketing campaigns for large brand advertisers with a foundation in search marketing. Understanding and analyzing user behavior online across search and social media provides the insights to engage and attract 360i's clients' target audience. 360i maintains a select group of premier clients such as NBC Universal, Scripps Networks, Discovery Networks, Office Depot and H&R Block, employing a combination of strategy, service and technology to ensure optimal campaign performance. 360i is part of Innovation Interactive, a search-centric digital marketing services company. For more information, please visit www.360i.com.

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