Amazon Marketplace shrinks
Amazon.com has changed their policy, preventing aggregators like Abebooks, Alibris, A1Books, and others from listing member booksellers’ titles on Amazon.com Marketplace; this is part of a shift toward ensuring that Amazon.com is always dealing directly with the final booksellers. One can presumably expect some reduction in some of their most interesting stock on Amazon.com as a result, as not all booksellers will choose to re-list with Amazon.com directly.
Unlike Amazon.com, we’re proud to work directly with these and other aggregators of bookseller inventory data (including Amazon.com’s own Marketplace), to help ensure that our users continue to have direct access to the broadest range of titles out there. If it’s out there for sale, we want you to be able to find it.
There’s been much discussion about this in the online bookselling community, on the Insider and Bibliophile lists, as well as in places like Abebooks’ community forums. The Bookselling Online weblog’s been covering this as information’s trickled out, discussing Abebooks’ initial announcement, Amazon’s announcement, and Amazon.com’s removal of Alibris.
Comments
I would like to see Amazon get rid of the not-so-famous booksellers that sell books and other items for only a penny ... too many of these lurking spoilers ruin the chances for honest book dealers (individuals as well as businesses) to hawk their wares in a fair marketplace. When you are constantly undercut by these spoilers, product just can't move and you can't compete.
MJB
Posted by: M J Barczak | September 30, 2005 11:03 AM
You say that if it's out there for sale we want you to be able to find it, but why doesn't bookfinder list items for sale on half.com as addall.com does?
Posted by: Donald Alexander | October 3, 2005 7:09 PM
Donald, we do search Half.com If there are specific cases you've encountered where titles from Half.com aren't showing up the way you expect them to, contact our customer service, so we can work with you to find the problem.
Posted by: Anirvan Chatterjee | October 3, 2005 7:20 PM
Hello: i think Amazon book sales is a fantastic site for the little guy...Abebooks and others have dominated the market in this site and know i have a better chance to sell my books. I am a very trusting seller and have been in business since 1982 and appreciate very much the Amazon system. One thing can you increase the shipping allowance a little bit more...or figure out a better way as some books cost a lot more to ship than others. cheers
Posted by: gerald | October 14, 2005 9:11 PM
Absolutelly agree with you gerald. Amazon provides sales rank information, it's possible to take a guess at how many books they sell on a given topic on a given day. This tool invites you to suggest a keyword or phrase (no quotes neccesary, no booleans currently supported) and a level of precision and receive guesses at how many books were sold and what they cost.
Posted by: Stephanie_B | October 29, 2005 1:49 PM
I used to run the department at Amazon that dealt with this – um, nine years ago. What we did then, and what’s been mostly the case in my experience since, is that you write Amazon stating, “I am not complaining about a critical review. Rather, it is clear that this reviewer has not read the book and is writing a negative review that is factually inaccurate.”
Posted by: John Beale | October 30, 2005 1:45 AM
I really love Amazon's booksale system and at this moment I don't need anything more.
Posted by: Eugene | December 9, 2005 12:54 PM