(http:/wais.sensei.com.au/macarc/appdir/1996/0077.html)

Fishpond.com.au

Fishpond.com.au is an Australian e-commerce company that has grown to become the nations's number 1 online bookstore.

Founded by Daniel Robertson in 2005 Fishpond.com.au.

Locations

Headquarters

The company's global headquarters is located in Auckland, New Zealand. It has satellite offices in Melbourne and Perth, Australia also.

Product lines

The current product range consists of: Books, CDs and DVDs

The company launched 'Sell Yours,' in 2005. A classifieds style element, that allowed public users to sell their own products through Fishpond's high traffic site. This move diversified the supplier base for many products, giving shoppers greater choice.

'Cash Rewards' is Fishpond's loyalty program, whereby users are given account credits for: writing product reviews and als using the 'Sell Yours' program. These account credits can be applied to future purchases.

Website

'Product Reviews' In many respects, Fishpond have taken a 'crowdsourcing' approach to populating their website. Up until recently, all product reviews were incentivised, with the reviewer earning a $0.20 credit each time. Now only the first reviewer for a product earns this credit.

'Search term recommendations' In an attempt to replicate Google's sophisticated search term recommendations (for when you mis spell something) Fishpond's engineers introduced their own system in May 2007. This is still in beta.

'Affiliate Program' Fishpond operates an affiliate along the lines of Amazon Associates. The Fishpond program offers 10% commission on all referred sales and caters

'Linked Lists' Lists of award winning and bestselling products, continually updated.

'Text Vouchers' Gift vouchers delivered to mobile phones as text or picture messages

'Product recommendations' Shoppers are shown the 'most desired' and 'most popular' products.

'Wishlist' Shoppers can add products to this list for purchase at a later date, or to send to friend who might want to purchase an item or items on the list as a present.

'Multiple Payment Methods' Shoppers are not restricted to credit card payments. They can use Paypal, bank transfer or cheque as well.

Innovations

Cash Rewards

Sample Music

This unique characteristic allows users to listen to short, approximately 30 second clips of each track on the CDs they are browsing. This function is designed to enable users to listen to the CD and decide if they like the music, or if the particular album features the songs they enjoy.

Shipping destinations

Global, but excludes high-fraud coutries like Nigeria.

Customer service

All customer enquiries are serviced by a dedicated help desk team, via email only.

Third-party seller pricing

'Sell Yours' allows independent authors and other motivated sellers to offer their products for sale on Fishpond. Second hand items must be priced at least 10% cheaper than the Fishpond list price.