Bookselling has always had an aura about it that many people find attractive. The sellers, variously stereotyped as garrulous old scholars, frustrated writers, postgraduate bookworms or gentlemanly 'Hugh Grant types,' are purveying a respected product. This image, and the sheer love of books, has compelled people into the bookselling trade since the invention of moveable type. Simultaneously, many others, including the barely literate, are attracted to bookselling by its mathematics. Few commodities, particularly among collectibles, can be found so readily and converted into a profit as easily as books.
In the past, many people fulfilled a dream and opened brick and mortar bookstores only to find they could not pay the rent with walk-in traffic, or were squeezed out of business by chain stores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders.
With the advent of online bookselling, all that has changed. Droves of brick and mortar bookstores have sprung up in obscure backwaters and are able to support themselves with the worldwide market for books provided by the Internet. In fact, there are now few entry barriers to selling books online beyond the acquirable knowledge of what sells and what doesn't. Anyone who possesses or can buy, beg or steal books can have their own bookstore online - limited in size only by their ability to scare-up books and store them - and their willingness to do the work.
Metasites: Everyman's Friend
Besides the worldwide market provided by the Internet, the key factor that makes this possible are the Metasites, or book search sites. Prior to the Internet, rare and out of print bookselling was an insular world where book values were often scrupulously guarded secrets - knowledge that was acquired through years of experience or the purchase of expensive sets of Auction Record books and piles of catalogs.
Today, thanks to the Internet, book values are completely transparent: easily researchable online with a few typed-in words and mouse clicks. Metasites, or sites that check the availability and pricing of books for sale on virtually all Internet book listing services, are a boon both to buyers seeking a title and sellers seeking pricing and bibliographic data on their books.
The result has been a stampede into the online bookselling market Today, retirees, "one cent wonder" booksellers and the semi-literate can list their books alongside the largest established stores and the most venerable/snootiest high end specialists - in an egalitarian ocean of e-commerce.
The Parallel Universes of Online Bookselling
The vast majority of Internet bookselling takes place in two very separate domains: retail book listing platforms and eBay and other auction sites. (Some booksellers maintain their own websites but count on traffic steered from the listing services or eBay.) To a surprising degree, seldom do the two domains meet. Many, many eBay book auction buyers simply do not check the book listing services for availability and pricing on books they are bidding on in eBay auctions. Conversely, many book buyers purchase strictly from the book listing services - never bothering to trawl for books on eBay, Amazon or Yahoo! Auctions.
Book Listing Services: the Slow Dime
There are currently 24 online book listing services of any significant size, charging either monthly fees based on books listed or commissions on sales - or both. These range in size from 100 dealers to 20,000, with a total dealer listings of anywhere from 100,000 to 70 million books. Of these 'The Big Three" or the "Three A's" generate the lion's share of sales: Amazon, ABE (Advanced Book Exchange,) and Alibris.
Amazon focused on new and in-print books for their first four years of business acquiring a database of 6 million people. Long a great platform for selling new and in-print books, Amazon has now expanded into hosting rare and out-of-print books - and, by all accounts, sell many.
The Advanced Book Exchange, or ABE, located in Victoria, British Columbia, is the largest of the out-of-print and rare bookselling venues, claiming 13,000 dealers listing 70 million books.
Alibris was a pioneer in the online book listing business, starting up in 1996 under the name Interloc. Changing their name and much of their format, they remain a major player in the field.
Further, there are smaller sites popular among experienced booksellers such as Biblio, TomFolio, AntiQBook, ChooseBooks, etc., that tend to charge lesser fees than the 'Big 3.' (More on this in Part II)
Both ABE and Alibris offer their sellers "affiliate programs," wherein the seller's books are computer listed for sale in all Barnes & Noble stores, library and international sites. All of the 'Big 3' services charge monthly listing fees based on the number of books listed and a per book sale commission ranging up to 20 percent of the retail price. They all offer credit card services to sellers who are not set-up for accepting credit/debit card payments at an additional commission.
The Upside of Book Listing Services
Book listing services are inexpensive. Listing fees per book are pennies or fractions of pennies per month; some of the smaller sites charge nothing to list books, taking instead a commission on books sold. (By contrast, eBay auctions charge listing fees for all auctions, and a commission on sell-through auctions.) For those with the stock and willingness to do the work, the listing services allow the seller to run a book store in a worldwide marketplace for a tiny fraction of the cost of maintaining a brick and mortar store.
Sellers garner the full retail price. For the their books on the listing services, sellers generally see books sell for full price - less listing service commissions.
Listing services are 'set and forget' venues. Once the seller has written-up his book descriptions and uploaded them to the listing service's server, they will appear for sale until the book is sold and the seller deletes the listing.
The Downside
With the ever-increasing number of people joining the listing services, common book prices are in a steady downward spiral. In the mid- to late 1990's, when bookselling e-commerce began to take-off, the rule of thumb was that a bookseller needed at least 5,000 titles listed online in order to begin making a full time living. Nowadays, the minimum stock requirement has risen to the range of 20,000-30,000 books. Common but popular books that readily sold ten years ago, now can be found for sale on the Internet in quantities of 50, 100, and 200 and more copies. Prices for these books have plummeted down to dollars and literally pennies in the competitive frenzy that's accompanied the market glut.
Books sell slowly on the listing services. Rare and desirable books, particularly those bargain priced, will sell quickly on the Internet - within several weeks. But the vast majority of books can, and do, take months or years to sell. This seller regularly gets order for books posted 1-5 years ago. The book listing services are truly a slow dime, best suited for sellers with huge inventories that will generate a regular and steady stream of orders.
Bookselling online is a time consuming process. Books in stores sit on shelves waiting to be bought, whereas listed books have to be described, one at a time, and for large inventories this can take weeks or months. Many sellers hire people to list their books, but for anyone else who is not prepared to invest large segments of their personal time listing, packing and shipping books should stay away from bookselling online.
eBay Auctions: the Fast Nickel
Veteran booksellers are a conservative lot, particularly when it comes to new ideas. For years, bookseller forums were filled with disdainful posts regarding eBay and its users. Sellers, the complaints went, possessed no bibliographic skills and were unable or unwilling to accurately describe books. eBay auctions were dismissed as a pop culture flea market, it's buyers, bottom fishers devoid of taste. But that was then and this is now. Today, all that has disappeared, replaced by the clarion call, "I'll eBay it!"
From auction houses like Sotheby's and Christies, through the largest high-end booksellers to the smallest of small fry, sellers have gravitated to eBay book auctions. At this point a majority, if not the vast majority, of online booksellers list at least some of their wares in eBay auctions. The reason is because eBay works, and it works quickly. Books that can take years to sell on the listing services can be sold in seven days on eBay. Beyond the fact that eBay offers an enormous worldwide, potential market, its book buyers are far more serendipitous and impulsive than those who use the book listing services. Book list buyers typically seek a specific book title on a listing or book search web page. The buyers get results on the specific title(s) they are seeking, and limit their purchase to that book or books. eBay buyers tend to search by category of interest and bid on anything of interest within the category - frequently books that they did not know existed.
The Upside
Cash flow. The quick sale afforded by eBay auctions allows a seller to turn over their stock rapidly, generating profits that can be used to purchase other books. Book list sellers frequently have to tie up money for lengthy periods of time before an expensive book finds a buyer. (By one estimate, it takes an average of 4.5 years to sell a $500 or greater value book in a store or through a listing service, and over 2 years, on average, for $100 and up books.)
A picture can sell better than a thousand words. Some listing service booksellers post photos with their listings, but the vast majority of listings do not use this time-consuming process. Ally book sellers use images - usually multiple pictures - and this sells books. Ephemeron - magazines, documents, brochures, paper 'scraps,' as well as post cards and the like - are notoriously difficult to sell on the book listing services. With the aid of photos and the ability of the buyer to search by category, ephemera sells extremely well on eBay.
Traffic and bidding wars. eBay, at any given time, enjoys huge traffic on its site and users who are ready to buy. Also, as mentioned, many eBay book buyers do not check for book availability outside of eBay, and this leads to bidding wars that can drive the selling price of a book to, and well above, retail.
The Downside
On average, books auctioned on eBay achieve a high wholesale price only - often considerably less than they can be listed for on the retail selling platforms. Over time, this is somewhat balanced out by bidding wars - but normally, only rare, desirable or 'lucky' books sell for retail or higher in eBay auctions.
eBay is a crap shoot. Success in any area of eBay auctions depends on who is up and using the service at any given time, and it varies widely. Books that fail to achieve a minimum bid on the first listing, frequently sell for multiples of the minimum on a second posting. This seller experiences a steady 40 percent sell-through rate on items re-listed on eBay. Meanwhile, listing fees add up and cut into profit margins.
The majority of listed books do not sell on eBay. The novice seller who buys a few boxes of common books at a flea market or auction and piles them indiscriminately onto eBay will lose money. Further, certain quality, esoteric books will not find a buyer on eBay. The process of learning what sells and what does not sell on eBay can be costly in time and money. We will offer some tips on this in Part II.
Just as it is with the listing services, posting one-of-a-kind titles on eBay auctions is a time-consuming process. Those who list, post, pack and ship $1-$10 books can easily find themselves working for less than minimum wage.
Today's online bookseller can count on two things as sure as death and taxes: ferocious competition and work, work and more work. For those not dissuaded by these road bumps, we will outline the specifics of getting started in the Internet bookselling world, the choices of Internet listing services, eBay bookselling tips and recommendations, and related factors in Part II of this report.
Read Part II | Part III.
Frank Fortunado is a contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com and an avid eBay seller.
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