BookFinder.com Journal

German market news

I’m pretty interested in German used and rare bookselling market. It has one of the most developed ecosystem outside of the Anglophone market, and looking at what’s happening offers a great set of data points to understand where our industry’s at. I was excited to came across a number of great stories covering the space in boersenblatt.net, a German book trade magazine. Here are some of the pieces I found.

(All of these articles are in German. To translate them, use Google’s handy 1-click translate bookmarklet. For English, you can drag this link to your browser toolbar —> View in English. Then click the button whenever you want to see a page in English.)

ZVAB:

• New pricing model
• Early history
• Peter Zylla exits
• Interview on pricing model, etc.
• ZVAB on shipping regulations
• Site relaunch

AbeBooks:

• New Italian site
• Reaction to Amazon acquisition, parts 1, 2, 3
• New pricing model
• Gojaba launch
• Market positioning overview

eBay:

• eBay.de’s new shipping policies
• eBay business model changes
• More fixed price listings on eBay.de

Smaller marketplaces and services:

• Prolibri on shipping regulations
• Buchfreund pricing model changes
• Interview on Oxfam Germany used bookstores
• ILAB rethinking Rockingstone relationship
• Eurobuch redesign
• momox-books buying used books en masse

Market-wide news:

• Antiquarian year in review series
• Overall used book sales trends

Law:

• Booksellers and child porn laws
• AbeBooks comments on bookselling law
• Online content labeling requirements

Posted by Anirvan

Amazon roundup

Jeff Bezos and company in the news:

• Amazon completed the acquisition of AbeBooks, our tremendously hands-off parent company; as discussed earlier, no changes are planned at BookFinder.com as a result
• Amazon’s pitching simple “frustration-free packaging”, a smart green move, as well a possible source of cost savings; will more retailers push vendors to offer packaging like this?
• The Times of London reports on Amazon.co.uk employment controversy; more details from the Seattle P-I blogger and commenters

[Now reading: Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson]

Posted by Anirvan

Amazon.com purchasing AbeBooks

Amazon.com is purchasing AbeBooks. As a long-time industry-watcher, I think this is pretty big news, certainly the most significant acquisition in the online used/rare book space to date—and yet not a lot may change.

AbeBooks will join the list of standalone Amazon.com subsidiaries, including Audible, shopbop.com, the Internet Movie Database, and Digital Photo Review.

When AbeBooks acquired BookFinder.com, there was some concern from well-wishers that they’d shut us down or make us skew our results—but neither happened, or was even an option. We’re still a small independently-managed operation, but now with more resources to draw upon.

It’s interesting seeing AbeBooks go through the same process as we did, but with Amazon.com. I know enough about the deal to be very confident that AbeBooks will follow a similar model: being run independently, but with the ability to draw on Amazon.com for help when they need it. And as for BookFinder.com? For better or for worse, the change doesn’t impact us at all. (Though personally, I wouldn’t mind if we got some free Audible subscriptions out of all this.)

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More coverage…

From AbeBooks and Amazon.com:

• Press release
• AbeBooks blog

Reactions from AbeBooks friends and family:

• Boris Wertz, former COO, AbeBooks
• Tim Spalding, Librarything

In the media:

• Seatle Post-Intelligencer blog
• Victoria Times-Colonist
• Vancouver Sun
• Motley Fool
• TechCrunch
• TechVibes
• ReadWriteWeb

Posted by Anirvan

Book retailer customer satisfaction

ForeSee Results’ Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index tries to quantify customer satisfaction at various ecommerce sites on a 100-point scale.

The five online book retailers listed in their May 2007 release are:

• 83: Amazon.com
• 79: Barnes&Noble.com:
• 74: AbeBooks.com
• 74: Overstock.com
• 72: Buy.com

The aggregate satisfaction score for the 100 measured retailers is 75. The book sites do fairly well for themselves, in light of the competition:

• 86: NetFlix.com
• 90: Apple.com
• 83: Amazon.com
• 79: Barnes&Noble.com
• 77: CrateandBarrel.com
• 76: VictoriasSecret.com
• 74: AbeBooks.com
• 74: Overstock.com
• 73: Target.com
• 72: Buy.com
• 71: FTD.com
• 69: HomeDepot.com

Per the release, this data is based on feedback from “over 24,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks but didn’t necessarily make a purchase” during spring 2008.

Posted by Anirvan

AbeBooks CEO interview

Michael at Book Patrol just posted a reasonably interesting interview with AbeBooks CEO Hannes Blum.

The interview hits on a pretty wide range of issues, including dealer pricing. (Obligatory shill alert: we’re an independently-operated subsidiary of AbeBooks.)

Posted by Anirvan

Chrislands acquired by AbeBooks

Chrislands, a service that offers white-label ecommerce websites for booksellers, has been acquired by Canadian book marketplace AbeBooks.

We’ve known Lance and Jim from Chrislands since their days running Bookopoly, an online marketplace they ran from 1999 to 2003. Congrats, guys.

The Chrislands team will remain at their current location near Washington, DC. They’ll be following the same model as us. BookFinder.com was acquired by AbeBooks two and a half years ago, but we remain an independently managed subsidiary. We’ve enjoyed being able to draw upon AbeBooks’ resources, treating them as a consulting firm we can call upon as needed (e.g. we brought in their designers to help us do a big visual redesign). I expect Chrislands will be able to do the same.

Posted by Anirvan

AbeBooks goes Canadian

Canada-based marketplace AbeBooks has an AbeBooks.ca Canadian microsite now, along the lines of the Abebooks.com.au and Abebooks.co.nz sites.

Charlie and I laughed when we discovered the microsite — shouldn’t a Canadian company have a full-on Canadian site? This is what happens when your home market is one-tenth the size of your neighbor; I presume the same dynamic applies to Austrian companies with large German customer bases. It helps that Austria and Germany share a single currency, though I suppose it’s gotten much easier for Canadians to shop at US dollar-denominated ecommerce sites ever since the two currencies hit parity.

Previous: “Abebooks’ international marketing”

Posted by Anirvan

AbeBooks top employer

The Victoria Times-Colonist, AbeBooks’ hometown newspaper, reports on what it’s like to work at one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers.

“Abebooks does what many others top employers do — dish out free doughnuts and bagels once a week, provide social events such as a recent Oktoberfest party and recognize their staff for special occasions such as birthdays and company milestones.”

(For the record, I haven’t yet been offered corporate donuts or beer on any of my trips up to Victoria; I may be visiting on the wrong day of the week.)

Posted by Anirvan

New AbeBooks blog

The staff of AbeBooks is publishing a new group blog called Reading Copy. Entries tend to focus on US/UK book news, with occasional updates on what’s going on at AbeBooks.

(Incidentally, did anyone notice that the company formerly known as the Advanced Book Exchange, ABE, Abe.com, and Abebooks changed its name to an intercapped “AbeBooks” back in October?)

Posted by Anirvan

Notes from all over

Bookselling news:

• The San Jose Mercury News reports that deals at local bookstore sales can be even cheaper than prices online
• The story of yet another textbook swapping site (every US college campus probably has one or two) — and why a Silicon Valley blogger calls textbook exchanges “stupid frat-boy business ideas”
• BellaOnline reviews eight different online book buyback websites
• Nigel Beale’s podcast interview with Abebooks COO Boris Wertz, dealing with changing policies, search functionality, and the LibraryThing investment
• The strong Canadian dollar is causing Canadian booksellers and buyers to complain about high prices, relative to those in the U.S.

New blogs:

• Jeff at Using Books posted a big list of bookseller blogs back in April
• Joyce at the Bibliophile Bullpen links to members of the Bibliophile mailing list who also blog
• Alibris has a new corporate book blog, featuring book reviews and U.S. book news

Funny book jackets:

• “Read It Before Hollywood Does” ad campaign for the Association of Librarians of the Czech Republic (via Bibliophile Bullpen)
• “The Pulp Canon: Lurid new covers for The Iliad, Little Women, and other classics” from Slate (also via Bibliophile Bulletin)
• Abebooks’ “not” book ad campaign

[Now Reading: Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson]

Posted by Anirvan