We like the idea that if you ask (somewhat nicely, and within reason), you shall receive. So when a bunch of clients told us that targeting their retail pricing to the online marketplace suggested a change in buyback pricing strategy too, we got to work.

Today we’re introducing the fruit of that labor, which we call Buyback Compete. It’s live now, and it’s available at no additional charge to existing Verba Compete clients.

Chart Your Whole Buyback

Existing Verba users know all about the competitiveness chart, which plots out store retail price vs. the online marketplace for every book in your catalog. Now we’ve applied the same concept to buyback.

Just import your current buyback price and desired quantity for each ISBN, and we’ll give you something like this:

On the left-hand side of the chart, you’ll see books where the marketplace is outbidding you for student books. On the right-hand side you’ll see books where you’re paying more than the marketplace is offering. Which leads us to…

One-Click Savings

As the chart above indicates, every store has a number of books for which their buyback price is higher than it needs to be. Buyback Compete helps you capture those savings in one fell swoop. Just click the “Match Lower Prices” button in the Recommendations panel and you’re good to go.

Get Organized, Dig Down

Of course, not all pricing decisions can be made with one click. Buyback Compete puts all you need to know about the competition at your fingertips, so you can make informed pricing decisions for each book you’re buying back.

Quick Filters

It starts with Quick Filters, which allow you to isolate the group of books you want to work with. Looking to tackle those books where the online marketplace is offering a more compelling buyback price? Just click the “Underpriced” filter and you’re off to the races.

Decision Panel

As you work through your catalog, use the Decision Panel to keep track of prices you’ve settled on. For each book, you can lock in your Original (imported) buyback price; match the top online competition’s offer; or set a custom modified price.

Worked and Watched Titles

Locking, matching, and saving a price all designate the book as “worked.” At any point, you can use the “Not Worked” Quick Filter to look at books awaiting your attention.

Even if a book has been “worked”, you can click the star icon to the left of the title to mark a book as one to watch. And yep, there’s a “Watched” Quick Filter too.

The Details

Want to know more about that “Online” price we’re showing in the Decision Panel? Just click the “Show Details” button to reveal Verba’s most recent data on the buyback offers we’re seeing in the online marketplace.

You’ll get a table view of all those offers:

Buyback Compete also gives you a visual sense of how on (or off) your currently selected buyback price is. And you can hover a point on a scatterplot to see details about that offer.

With the Details area, there’s no longer any need to jump around competing buyback sites to inform your pricing decisions: it’s all in one place.

Assessing the Impact

The whole time you’re working through your catalog, Verba keeps track of the impact your decisions may have on the buyback bottom line.

The “Estimated Savings (Loss)” calculation takes your estimated buyback quantities, and the difference between your current and original buyback prices, and multiplies them to put a dollar number on your price changes. We provide these calculations for your whole catalog, and for the books you’ve currently filtered down to.

As in most of Verba Compete, green is good: it means your price changes have led to a store savings. A red number means you’re laying out more cash with your modified pricing than with your originally imported prices.

Easy Export

When you’re ready to update pricing in your back-office system, Buyback Compete comes with an easy export option. From your original price, to the online marketplace price we’re seeing, to your saved/modified buyback price, it’s all there.

Just A Start

Like all Verba applications, the Buyback Compete module will keep evolving, and we’ll roll out those updates free of charge. Client feedback is our single biggest source of improvements, so if you can spare a couple minutes going into this busy buyback period, we’d love to hear what you think.

And if you’re not yet a client, but like what you see, header over to our Contact page to learn more about Buyback Compete and our other cutting-edge services.

We’re kicking off the new year by announcing two exciting new affiliates in Verba Compare: Inkling and Google eBookstore.

Inkling works with publishers to convert their content into beautiful, media-rich digital textbooks. While Inkling texts are currently only available on iPad, they represent the bleeding edge in digital course materials. As Lara Konick at University of Washington’s University Bookstore told us:

We’ve been watching the innovations that Inkling has brought to course materials this past year, and we are so excited to be offering their content to our students through Verba.

We’re really proud to be the first and easiest way for campus stores to make Inkling available to students. You can check out the full press release here.

The Google eBookstore has the single largest selection of eBooks on the web – over 3 million titles and counting. Google eBooks are device agnostic, which means they can be read on any computer, smart phone, or tablet.

Fully-Managed Retailers

Both Inkling and Google eBookstore come into Verba Compare as fully-managed retailers. This means that Verba clients can activate both retailers with a flip of a switch on their Retailer Settings page:

One-Stop Digital Strategy

As options proliferate, Verba is working hard to make campus stores the hub for digital course materials. Alongside Inkling and Google eBookstore, client stores can also offer eBooks and eChapters from CengageBrain, CourseSmart, Barnes & Noble’s NookStudy, and Textbooks.com.

Brian Fetterman at Forty-Niner Shops, Cal State University Long Beach, says:

Using Verba Compare we’ve been able to add tons of rental digital content without doing tons of extra work. We adopt books into our system just as we always have and Verba Compare does everything for us. It just works.

Any questions about these great new affiliates, or about digital in general? Just ask.

Just in time for rush, we’re proud to announce the inclusion of CengageBrain in Verba Compare! To immediately start displaying any combination of CengageBrain’s rental, eTextbook, and eChapter offers, Verba clients need only flip the switch in their Retailer Settings Panel, pictured below.

CengageBrain comes into Verba Compare as a Fully-Managed Retailer, so Verba facilitates both the technical integration and affiliate relationship on behalf of our clients. The CengageBrain relationship brings Verba users a 12% commission on all sales directed to the retailer.

For more information on CengageBrain and other affiliate partners available through Verba Compare, take a look at our up-to-date Verba Compare Affiliate Details document.