Barnesandnoble.com CEO knows No. 2
Bulkeley came to Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) from America Online Inc., (NYSE:AOL) where he served as managing director of the AOL's joint venture with Bertelsmann Online in the United Kingdom. Prior to that, he was vice president of business development and general manager of media at AOL.
"When I started at AOL it was a distant third. In 1993 AOL was six times smaller than CompuServe and Prodigy," he said. "AOL won, to a large extent because of ease-of-use. They made it easier to get online, and navigate the site, and [the pricing was simpler]. That jettisoned them ahead of the competition."
Bulkeley is hoping to use those lessons with Barnesandnoble.com' new music store. Bulkeley said today that while there are many stores selling music online, his store will be more attractive to consumers because of the navigation tools built into the site.
Lessons learned
"I encourage you to go use the Virgin site and then come use ours. I can't navigate. I can't find [anything]. Even with CDNow I have trouble navigating and finding what I'm looking for," he said. "While there are lots of sites out there, I don't think anyone's done the best job. I sound like Sy Sperling: I'm not only the CEO; I also buy CDs."
Navigation features at the new site include a special section devoted to classical music that links together a variety of products: CDs, videos, books, software and sheet music. Users can search by composer, performer, instrument, conductor or album title.
Bulkeley will certainly need to pull out all the stops to make a mark in the online music business. While the market is large (Forrester Research estimates that online music sales will hit $374 million for 1999 and top $2.5 billion by 2003) there are plenty of players aiming for those sales.
And the player that has made the biggest splash so far is Barnesandnoble.com's nemesis in the book-selling world, Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN).
While Amazon only began selling music online last year, it has already vaulted to the front of the line with regard to sales, ahead of Net pure-plays like CDNow Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNW) and offline retailers like Virgin.
Pundits have begun calling Amazon "the Wal-Mart of the Internet" citing the company's rapid expansion into areas beyond books, with the company acquiring stakes in firms that sell everything from drugs to pet supplies online.
Bulkeley said that while he does see Barnesnadnoble.com branching out, "I don't think we'll be selling toothpaste any time soon."
Looking at video, too
Instead, the company will focus on products that appeal to its core audience, which is one of the reasons the music site launched with a focus on classical music. jazz, classical and soundtracks are among the biggest sellers in the company's offline stores, although the online store also features popular music and other categories.
Bulkeley says the company's business is focused on selling and distributing information and entertainment to its customers. That reach could expand to include more content and other product categories.
"I think video would be a nice fit. We're looking at it. Our focus was to get music up and launched," he said.