CASE STUDY The Library of America

THE LIBRARY OF Founded in 1979, The Library of America is a nonprofit organization AMERICA dedicated to preserving America’s cultural heritage by publishing the www.loa.org country’s best and most significant writings in durable and authoritative editions. The first volumes were published in 1982, and today, the organization sells approximately 250,000 copies of Library of America volumes each year. Challenges • Lacked single fulfillment CHALLENGES partner The Library of America had a high-quality product that was making a name for itself in • Needed to increase revenue literary and publishing circles, but they lacked a one-stop strategic partner that could effectively manage their order management and product fulfillment – a critical element Solutions in ensuring their product reached their customers. The organization needed a full-service • Order management provider who could handle unique requirements, which included both one-shot and • E-commerce continuity orders. They also sought comprehensive reporting on all transactions so they • Warehousing could gain a better understanding of their production, transactions and orders.

• Customer service A critical element to The Library of America’s business was the need to increase their • Data solutions revenue through e-commerce sales. The organization required a simple solution that would allow them to easily sell their products via one-shot offers through a fully Results integrated, company-branded web store. • Saved money The Library of America’s continuity program offered customers the opportunity to enroll • Enjoy robust donor list in a program to receive a series of high-quality books at a reasonable cost. However, • Acknowledgements sent their provider lacked the sophistication of an intelligent order management system and sooner their core customers would often be sent titles that they already owned or were not • Escape burden of dirty interested in receiving. The organization needed an easy and effective way to suppress transactions these titles from a customer’s file so that resources were not wasted and customers were not receiving unwanted shipments.

SOLUTIONS CDS Global provides The Library of America with an end-to-end solution that allows the organization to handle business functionalities such as order management, warehousing and services, as well as customer service and full business intelligence reporting. By being able to manage key customer interactions and operational functions under one roof, The Library of America has streamlined their business processes.

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“Since implementing CDS Global’s order management solution, The Library of America has seen our returns rate fall from a moderate 16% to 8.5%.”

David Cloyce Smith Director of Production & Online Marketing The Library of America

Key elements of the solutions provided by “Since implementing CDS Global’s order management CDS Global include: solution, The Library of America has seen our returns rate fall from a moderate 16 percent to 8.5 percent,” Top-notch e-commerce services. This allows the says David Cloyce Smith, director of Production & Online organization to market their books through a Library of Marketing at The Library of America. “This has saved our America-branded web store that customers link to through organization costly shipping and processing costs and the organization’s website. The Library of America gains has also improved customer satisfaction by saving our the ability to promote intelligent cross-sells of similar books customers from unwanted shipments.” upon customer checkout, and customers are allowed the ability to sign up to receive notice of events and Integrated Continuity Program announcements via email. • During the title-by-title conversion, not a single Integrated continuity program for their titles. When joining shipment was missed – a testament to the attention the continuity program, customers are able to identify the to detail and quality control procedures that are titles they do not wish to receive. This data is then utilized part of CDS Global’s fully integrated warehouse to build a suppression file that removes those titles from management system. future shipments. “Choosing CDS Global’s integrated, full-service solutions Full business intelligence reporting. With full business for our product fulfillment has allowed The Library of intelligence reporting, The Library of America is able to America to manage our customer touch points much interact with their data for expedited business analysis at better than before,” says Smith. “Our returns rate has any time of day. The comprehensive data makes it easier dropped every year, our overall costs have been reduced for them to assess the outcome of all efforts after an order and our web store has brought in increased revenue for has been placed through CDS Global’s order management our organization.” system. CDS Global’s fulfillment solution allows The Library of America to handle their one-shot and continuity orders RESULTS expertly, providing their customers with an exceptional product at a quality price. E-commerce Solution Business Intelligence Reporting • CDS Global’s web store solution has allowed The Library of America to substantially increase • By employing CDS Global’s business intelligence its e-commerce sales. reporting solution, The Library of America was able to • Initiatives such as the use of coupon codes, “also optimize their customer interactions and reduce costs. available” cross-sells, and sets sold on installment “Using CDS Global’s new reporting system, we have been plans have contributed to a significant boost in web able to simplify the process of retrieving relevant data traffic for The Library of America. In 2009, compared and we can access a wide variety of reports in minutes, to the same period in 2008: any time of day,” says Smith. “Business intelligence has • New web subscriptions increased by 15 percent. eliminated the need to submit requests for information, allowing us to pull data together ourselves – faster than • Single-order web sales increased by 42 percent. ever before.” • Overall web traffic increased 40 percent. • By moving and storage to CDS Global’s warehouse, and by using our warehouse management system, The Library of America has been able to reduce return rates by more than half.

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