UK sales and marketing director Andy Brown and at least four other marketers have been made redundant. While the BOL.com brand will exist online, Bertelsmann will no longer promote it.
Brown, who took up the position last autumn (Marketing, October 11, 2001), is understood to be setting up his own training company.
The online retailer, whose biggest marketing push was a controversial ad campaign by M&C Saatchi in 2000 that attracted 316 complaints to the ASA, has taken the measures in a concerted effort to cut costs. It has lost ground to Amazon.com and the internet operations of a number of traditional book retailers.
It will overhaul its business model from September, refocusing as a bargain bookseller by cutting inventory and offering big discounts such as 60% off bestsellers.
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