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

German click and mortar network

While catching up with booksellers’ opinions on Abebooks policies (e.g. Jest, Colonel Colonel), I ran across Abebooks.de’s “Buchexperten-Netzwerk” (book expert network). It turns out that Abebooks’ German operation has been building up a network of bookstore partners, offering walk-in customers free appraisals and the chance to order Abebooks titles without having Internet access (i.e. taking the e- out of e-commerce).

A good number of North American click-and-mortar bookstores did the same thing, back before Internet/ecommerce access was common. This reminds me a bit of the new wave of eBay stores, except that you have the online marketplace actively promoting the offline sellers. Is this interesting? Does anyone familiar with the German-speaking book market have any predictions about how effective this might be?

[Now Reading: Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain edited by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gaviln]

Posted by Anirvan

Order cancellation rates

Blogger Robert Nagle posts that he tried to purchase an Abebooks title via Half.com, but got his order canceled because it was out of stock. Incensed, he discovered that 15 of the past 50 feedback entries on Abebooks’ Half.com listings page were for cancelled orders.

Abebooks’ eBay/Half.com program’s statistics indicate that 12% of feedback for transactions over the past 12 months has been negative or neutral. (Most of that feedback is for cancelled orders; in fact, even some of the positive feedback ratings cite cancelled orders.) One out of every eight customers appear to be walking away unhappy.

Alibris’ numbers indiate that they’re doing almost twice as well. Over the past year, only 7% of Alibris feedback over the past 12 months has been negative or neutral. Alibris seems to be disappointing only (only?) one of every fifteen customers. (Some of the non-positive comments are about product quality, though most are still about order cancellation.)

These numbers are disappointing, and though they reflect difficulties involved in syncing data between a listings service’s own database with eBay/Half.com’s inventory management systems, they also highlight how far we are from reaching 100% deliverability for all the used titles listed for sale online.

Robert Nagle’s not alone. Nobody likes ordering a book and having the seller tell you that he or she doesn’t have it in stock. On our side, we’ve been discussing bookseller rating mechanisms with our listings service partners, and are working to help ensure that BookFinder.com’s users can feel certain that the book they order is from as reliable a seller as possible. We’ve been pushing for tighter inventory management for yearswe can do better.

Have you had issues with cancelled orders on BookFinder.com? What steps should we be taking to address the problem? As always, we appreciate comments.

Posted by Anirvan

Bookslut editor compares services

Jessa Crispin, editor of Bookslut (a publication we've touted here before), reviews buying books at Abebooks, Alibris, and eBay in The Book Standard. Looking for cheap books, she preferred Abebooks' inventory for the availability of sub-$5 deals.

(via Blog of a Bookslut)

Posted by Anirvan

Half.com not closing

eBay has changed it's mind: Half.com is not being shut down:

In our last announcement earlier this summer, we said that Half.com would be closing on October 14, 2004. We have decided NOT to go forward with this plan and will keep Half.com open indefinitely.

Read the announcement and the accompanying FAQ, which includes gems like "Have I just wasted my time, effort and money the last few months in participating in the transition efforts?"

Posted by Anirvan

Beyond Half.com, continued

[Followup to Thursday's mention of the Auctionbytes series, "A Look at Half.com". All three parts are out now.]

eBay's been encouraging Half.com booksellers to move over to the eBay platform, but many booksellers have been checking out some of the other options. AuctionBytes is running a three-part series called "A Look at Half," about how Half.com sellers are dealing with the site's closure.

Part 1 ("Some Half Booksellers Not Embracing eBay?"), discusses the backstory, and interviews a former Half.com seller making the transition over to Amazon.com Marketplace.

Part 2 ("Booksellers talk about where they will (and will not) go next"), interviews a number of sellers about their post-Half.com plans. Some of those destinations include Alibris, Amazon.com Marketplace, Abebooks, eBay Stores, and Choosebooks -- all sites that BookFinder.com searches.

Part 3 ("Letters from readers"), has readers writing in with their reactions. Readers mention iOffer and BooksByBid as two more auction venues where they plan to take their offerings.

Posted by Anirvan

Beyond Half.com

eBay's been encouraging Half.com booksellers to move over to the eBay platform, but many booksellers have been checking out some of the other options. AuctionBytes is running a three-part series called "A Look at Half," about how Half.com sellers are dealing with the site's closure.

Part 1 ("Some Half Booksellers Not Embracing eBay?"), discusses the backstory, and interviews a former Half.com seller making the transition over to Amazon.com Marketplace.

Part 2 ("Booksellers talk about where they will (and will not) go next"), interviews a number of sellers about their post-Half.com plans. Some of those destinations include Alibris, Amazon.com Marketplace, Abebooks, eBay Stores, and Choosebooks -- all sites that BookFinder.com searches.

Posted by Anirvan