Verba Compete with PrismWeb

Verba Compete enables Nebraska-partnered bookstores to view textbook prices (new, used, rental, and digital) of the online competition for every title in the store. Based on the online marketplace, Verba will recommend both price increases and decreases to the bookstore in order to maximize market share and revenues. Once the store has made their pricing decisions in Compete, the store can easily export that pricing to their Nebraska system for price changes both in-store and online. Verba Compete also recommends pricing strategies on buyback titles and strategic online sourcing for those titles where buying online is the only way to offer a competitively priced option to students.

Setting Up Verba:

To begin using Verba, the first step is to contact Verba. They can give you information about their services, and provide you with the tools needed on their side of the communications process.

Sending Information to Verba:

Once the Verba side is set up, you can send your course requests, with the books, over to Verba. This communication occurs through the Web line in WPConsole, and communicates these books, along with pricing information, to Verba. Thus, to send items to Verba, you merely need to check them to go to the web. On the Verba Compete site, then, Verba compares your pricing information, title by title, to a host of online competitors, and reports back to you which of your prices is outside of a competitive margin. This pricing information is based on parameters you set on the Verba Compete side. So, for example, you may choose for Verba to show you all new titles that are not within ten percent of competitor prices.

Changing Prices Through Verba:

Once this comparison is done, you can then choose to change your store pricing to match the competition. This is done on the Verba Compete side. For each title listed, you can choose whether or not to accept the Verba Compete recommendation for a price change. Once you have gone through the list, you can export these price changes over to PrismCore. This is where the PrismCore version 24 changes come in. PrismWeb will pick up the packet containing the price changes from Verba, and route it to the CampusHub system, which will allow PrismCore to import these prices.

Deciding on Price Changes in PrismCore:

These changes, then, are written to the Verba Price Change Queue, available under the hammer in the Price Changes module.

The VERBA Price Change Queue will show the following information:

Process Price Change Flag
Location
Term
N/U
ISBN
Description
SKU
Current Retail
Current Item Cost Margin
Current Acct Cost Margin
Retail Difference
tem Cost
Acct Cost
Proposed Retail
Proposed Item Cost Margin
Proposed Acct Cost Margin
SOH
Rental Qty
Bd/Ed/Cp
VERBA user

At the bottom of the screen, there are several options:

At this point, users will need to decide whether or not to accept the price changes listed by Verba, and preapproved on the VERBA page. To check all items in the list to be changed, choose ‘Check/Uncheck All Items’. Conversely, users can pick and choose which titles to update by checking the ‘Process Price Changes’ box in the grid.

If deciding to update prices, one will need to decide if, when changing a new/used title, the alternative title should also be changed. If so, check either ‘Update New Prices from Used Prices’ or ‘Update Used Prices from New Prices’

Reporting for Price Changes:

Once users have chosen their options, they can run the report, process the changes, or exit without making changes. To run a report, choose ‘VERBA Price Chg Queue Report’.

This report shows a comparison of titles, and will show what price changes will occur.

Changing Prices in PrismCore:

When finished, to make the price changes, users will choose Process Price Changes. A dialog will appear, asking if the user wants to Process Changes.

This will change the Item Maintenance Retail price of all items selected in the grid. When finished, the system will display:

A markup (markup cancellation) will be recorded in the stock ledger for this change.

NOTE: These Verba price changes will ignore the WPAdmin settings “Update Used Prices from New Prices” and “Update New Price from Used Prices”. The corresponding New or Used textbook price for each checked item in the list will only be changed in conjunction with the Verba price change boxes at the bottom of the screen if one of these checkboxes is checked in this dialog. If the user leaves the default and does not check either box in the Verba Price Change Queue dialog, the corresponding New or Used textbook price will not be changed along with the Verba price change regardless of the WPAdmin settings. Also, if the store has the parameter “Round prices using Store Information parameters” checked in System Parameters, this option will be ignored and prices will never be rounded for these price changes.

Verba Compete without PrismWeb

Setting Up Verba:

Verba can be used even by stores that do not have a PrismWeb website with NBC. Again, however, the first step is to contact Verba. They can give you information about their services, and provide you with the tools needed on their side of the communications process.

Sending Information to Verba:

Once the Verba side is set up, you can send your course requests, with the books, over to Verba via an export from PrismCore. This export can be done through Report Generator.

The report generator can have any name, and should have a query similar to the following, where the Value field is the name of the term you are working with.

The fields to include in the report should be similar to the following:

We recommend that you generate the report, and then export it to Excel.

On the Verba side, then, you will import this file. Once complete, on the Verba Compete site, then, Verba compares your pricing information, title by title, to a host of online competitors, and reports back to you which of your prices is outside of a competitive margin. This pricing information is based on parameters you set on the Verba Compete side. So, for example, you may choose for Verba to show you all new titles that are not within ten percent of competitor prices.

Changing Prices Through Verba:

Once this comparison is done, you can then choose to change your store pricing to match the competition. This is done on the Verba Compete side. For each title listed, you can choose whether or not to accept the Verba Compete recommendation for a price change. Once you have gone through the list, you can export these price changes over to PrismCore, using the ‘Export’ option on Verba.

Importing Changes into PrismCore:

PrismCore can import the file containing these Verba price changes. To do this, users will access the Price Change module in PrismCore, and will chose the “VERBA Import Price Change Queue” option under the hammer, which will allow PrismCore to import these prices.

First, users will be asked to choose the campus and term for which the price change file will be imported.

Next, users will need to choose the source file which contains the price changes. This will be the file exported from the Verba site. Click the ellipses next to ‘Source File’ and choose the proper file. When finished, click OK.

These changes, then, are written to the Verba Price Change Queue, available under the hammer in the Price Changes module. From this point forward, the process is exactly the same as if the store has PrismWeb. See ‘Deciding on Price Changes in PrismCore’ above for more information.

End of Term

At the end of the term, you may decide to revoke all price changes done in PrismCore, in order to ‘reset’ your system for the next term.

To import prices to review:

To change all prices of books changed through the Verba interface, users will need to go to the hammer in the Price Changes module, and choose ‘VERBA Reset Price Change Queue’.

A dialog will display, asking users to choose which campus and period for which to reset prices:

When ‘OK’ is pressed, a dialog will display to confirm the choice.

This is ONLY asking if you wish to pull the changes into the queue. This will NOT change those prices, but merely pull them into the queue for viewing.

A dialog displays, confirming the changes have been pulled into the queue.

To view proposed changes:

These proposed changes, then, are written to the Verba Price Change Queue, available under the hammer in the Price Changes module.

The VERBA Price Change Queue will show the following information:

Process Price Change Flag
Location
Term
N/U
ISBN
Description
SKU
Current Retail
Current Item Cost Margin
Current Acct Cost Margin
Retail Difference
Item Cost
Acct Cost
Proposed Retail
Proposed Item Cost Margin
Proposed Acct Cost Margin
SOH
Rental Qty
Bd/Ed/Cp

At the bottom of the screen, there are several options:

At this point, users will need to decide whether or not to accept the price changes listed, which will change all Verba altered prices back to the retail at which the item was listed prior to the FIRST Verba change. To check all items in the list to be changed, choose ‘Check/Uncheck All Items’. Conversely, users can pick and choose which titles to update by checking the ‘Process Price Changes’ box in the grid.

If deciding to update prices, one will need to decide if, when changing a new/used title, the alternative title should also be changed. If so, check either ‘Update New Prices from Used Prices’ or ‘Update Used Prices from New Prices’.

Reporting for Price Changes:

Once users have chosen their options, they can run the report, process the changes, or exit without making changes. To run a report, choose ‘VERBA Price Chg Queue Report’.

This report shows a comparison of titles, and will show what prices changes will occur.

Changing Prices in PrismCore:

When finished, to make the price changes, users will choose Process Price Changes. A dialog will appear, asking if the user wants to Process Changes.

This will change the Item Maintenance Retail price of all items selected in the grid. When finished, the system will display:

A markup (markup cancellation) will be recorded in the stock ledger for this change.

NOTE: These Verba price changes will ignore the WPAdmin settings “Update Used Prices from New Prices” and “Update New Price from Used Prices”. The corresponding New or Used textbook price for each checked item in the list will only be changed in conjunction with the Verba price change boxes at the bottom of the screen if one of these checkboxes is checked in this dialog. If the user leaves the default and does not check either box in the Verba Price Change Queue dialog, the corresponding New or Used textbook price will not be changed along with the Verba price change regardless of the WPAdmin settings. Also, if the store has the parameter “Round prices using Store Information parameters” checked in System Parameters, this option will be ignored and prices will never be rounded for these price changes.