A Success Story: Step-by-Step Online Bookseller Guide
November 19, 2007
Since the invention of movable type the sale of new, used and rare books has been a large, steady worldwide market. The sheer love of books has segued many from collectors into dealers, the 'prestige' of dealing in a respected product has compelled others into the trade, as have the mathematics: few collectible commodities can be as readily found as books. Even in today's competitive market, book gems can still be found in such pedestrian venues as flea markets, garage sales, thrift shops and even thrown out on curbs and in dumpsters.
Prior to the Internet, finding salable used books had often been easier than finding their values. Information of all types — values, bibliographic lore and edition status were jealously guarded secrets acquired through experience, expensive sets of auction record books and by plowing through piles of auction catalogs.
Years ago, the most common way booksellers discovered they had under-priced a book was to list the title in a catalog or industry magazine and receive 10 orders for the book within a day. Now, thanks to Internet book-listing services, meta-site search engines and auctions, all that has changed.; today there is a transparency to book pricing that allows virtually anyone — retirees, 'once-cent wonder' types and the semi-literate — to become booksellers. All that is required is an Internet-connected computer, access to books, a place to store them and the willingness to do the work.
The Parallel Universes of Internet Book Selling The majority of new and used books are still sold in stores, auctions, flea markets and other face-to-face venues, but online book buying is an ever increasing niche with over 100 million used books alone offered for sale on the Internet. Bookseller Web sites aside, there are basically two universes of online book selling: the commercial book listing services and auctions, mainly eBay. Here we will offer the pros and cons of both platforms, tips to get started and road bumps to avoid, beginning with the listing services. Tomorrow we'll cover e-Bay in-depth in the second part of the series.
Book Listing Services: The Slow Dime The Upside Beginning in earnest in 1994 with a company then known as Interloc, now Alibris, the online book listing services have allowed anyone to run a virtual bookstore without incurring the overhead of a brick-and-mortar store, limited in size only by the individual's ability to find, store and list books on the Web. The Internet has also saved many retail bookstores by providing a worldwide market for those who were being squeezed out of existence by chain stores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders, and who had trouble paying the bills from walk-in traffic.
The listing service model allows booksellers to sell before a worldwide audience unlimited numbers of books at a monthly cost of a fraction of a cent per book (some smaller services offer free listing until books are sold.) The listing sites collect moderate monthly listing fees based on the number of books listed and commissions on sales. (By contrast, eBay auctions charge listing fees regardless of whether a book sells or not, plus closing fees.)
Sellers garner the full retail price for their books minus the listing service monthly fees and commissions that generally range between 7.5 and 15 percent. (This is often not the case with eBay auctions, as we'll discuss later.) The only other charge is credit card processing fees, usually 5.5 percent for those who do not or are not allowed by certain services to process their own credit orders.
Another advantage: Listing services are "set and forget" venues. Once sellers have written up their descriptions and uploaded them to the listing service's server, the books remain for sale until the book is sold and/or the seller deletes them.
The Downside The listing services are the "slow dime" of Internet book selling. Rare and desirable books will sell quickly on the listing services, which generally translates into the first several weeks or months after their listed. Most books can and do take many months or years to sell. This seller regularly gets orders for books that were listed one to seven years ago.
Another drawback: Good news travels fast. The stampede into the listing services created a glut of books. There are many dealers listing over 100,000 books, one is said to have 4 million books listed online. The result is that common but popular books that readily sold 10 years ago can now be found in quantities of 50, 100 and 200 copies. Prices for these books plummeted down to dollars and literally pennies in the competitive frenzy that's accompanied the market glut.
Back in the late 1990s, the rule of thumb was that a bookseller needed at least 5,000 books listed in order to begin making a living online. Today that number has risen to perhaps 30,000, listed on at least several different services, and many of them need to be above average.
(Continue to Page 2 for an In-Depth Look at Listers)
Add ecommerce-guide.com to your favorites Add ecommerce-guide.com to your browser search box IE 7 | Firefox 2.0 | Firefox 1.5.xReceive news via our XML/RSS feed
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
