Bertelsmann AG's book club and e-commerce unit plans to expand its business in Korea.
Direct Group Bertelsmann CEO Klaus Eierhoff, in Seoul for a two-day visit, said that his group enjoys a good partnership with the Korean partner Daum Communications.
He added that since its launch in October, Bertelsmann Book Club has accumulated 200,000 members with the help of Korean portal Daum Communications.
Formed in a partnership with Daum last June, the group is the second largest shareholder in the book club.
Eierhoff said that around 70 percent of their members signed on to the Club Website after browsing the Daum portal.
He also mentioned that the group has plans to launch its BOL.com next year, based on its success with the book club in Korea. BOL.com would be an online book and media product store.
The group is discussing the project with their potential Korean business partners.
The CEO also cited that the country offered a good business climate for online business, referring to many Koreans having their own PCs and that media-related products are selling well.
On the likelihood that amazon.com will open an office in 2001, Eierhoff was confident that BOL's multi-channel sales will enable the group to outperform amazon.com, which has online-only access to customers.
He commented that BOL will follow its parent company's 50-year catalogue-based system including the Book Club, under which the company sends book catalogues to its customer members. Its customers would then order books online after reviewing the catalogues, which are more profitable than computers and that they tend to order more later.
Eierhoff also pointed out that consumers not only want online access but offline capabilities to buy things as well. Their company has more experience than the US online bookstore which recently introduced its catalogue-based sales.
The Direct Group was created in July as an integrated "direct-to-customer" business. It unites Bertelsmann AG's internal book and music clubs and e-commerce business.
The book and music clubs include BCA in the United Kingdom, Book of the Month Club and BMG Music Service in the United States and e-commerce services BOL.com Broadband Group and CDNOW.
