Book Business EXTRA Q&A—Charles Halpin, General Manager of Pubnet/PubEasy, Talks About a New ‘Lightning Fast’ Book Ordering System
With the launch of Bowker’s Pubnet Instant Response this week, book retailers can reorder books more quickly from several of the industry’s largest publishers. General Manager Charles Halpin chats with Book Business EXTRA! about the benefits of this new ordering program.
Book Business EXTRA: How is Instant Response different from what was available before for ordering?
Halpin: Pubnet Instant Response is a new service for book retailers that is offered with participating publishers—today, Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Holtzbrinck. Instant Response is different because it is lightning-fast. Instant Response is available to any publisher that utilizes both Pubnet and PubEasy, Bowker’s supply chain services.
The chief benefit of Pubnet Instant Response is its speed—it’s an end-to-end electronic process for both the retailer and the publisher, which is very efficient and cost-effective. Unlike a phone order, a retailer doesn’t have to go back and key data into its POS system. Instant Response is also ISBN-13 compliant, so it has the ability to replace the old, dial-up direct electronic order (DEO) systems, many of which are being shut down by publishers in 2007.