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04/02/10
IOBA needs a tagline!
We need your creativity.
Using the same tagline under our logo on your websites and in our literature is crucial to our identity as a thriving organization. A new tagline will tell customers, new members and the general public who IOBA is and what we do. It will build brand awareness and set the quality image folks have come to expect from IOBA.
We need your help.
Write our tagline and win big prizes!
Yellow Pages has “Let your fingers do the walking.”
GE has “We bring good things to life.”
M&Ms has “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”
Hallmark Cards has, “When you care enough to send the very best.”
BMW has “The ultimate driving machine.”
United Airlines has “Fly the friendly skies.”
New York Times has “All the news that’s fit to print.”
IOBA has “ _________________________” (Nada!)
Grab your pencil and paper or your keyboard and printer. IOBA needs your help in creating a tagline to sit below its logo. You can win big if yours is chosen. How do you win? It’s easy!
- Your entries must be nine words or less
- Your entries must speak to function and/or purpose of IOBA as found on the www.IOBA.org home page. Use your imagination. Let the words speak!
- You may enter up to three taglines
- The contest begins April 1, 2010 and ends at midnight on April 30, 2010.
- You’ll submit your entries to taglinecontest@ioba.org via email.
- Winners will be announced on or before May 15, 2010.
What do you win?
Gift certificates for
www.IOBAbooks.com
You will use them to buy books, or to pay your listing fees—just think of the possibilities!
Grand Prize-$250 gift certificate
2nd Prize - $100 gift certificate
3rd Prize - $50 gift certificate
Three “honorable mentions” will receive IOBA.com tote bags.
Have fun and send your entries in to
taglinecontest@ioba.org today!
Questions? Just email Jan at taglinecontest@ioba.org.
Rules and fine print:
- Entries must be nine words or less.
- Entries must speak to function and/or purpose of IOBA as found on the
www.IOBA.org home page.
- Contestant may enter up to three taglines.
- Submit entries to [taglinecontest@ioba.org] via email. Only entries submitted to
taglinecontest@ioba.org will be considered.
- Contest begins April 1, 2010. Only entries submitted to
taglinecontest@ioba.org by midnight on April 30, 2010 will be considered. Any entries sent before the start date or after the deadline will be deemed ineligible.
- Winners will be announced on or before May 15, 2010.
- Gift Certificate Awards are not redeemable for cash, but rather for book purchases and/or listing fees to be reimbursed by IOBA up to the total amount of the Award.
- Although there will be winners chosen and prizes awarded, the Board of Directors reserves full right to use, rewrite, edit or not use any and all taglines submitted for the directives and purposes of IOBA. Once submitted all entries become the property of IOBA and can be used in any form and for any purposes the Board of Directors deem fit and necessary.
Please do not reply to this email, but direct all your questions to
taglinecontest@ioba.org.
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8/23/09
An online book buyer felt cheated, found our website, and contacted our Ethics Chair for a second opinion. Their exchange follows:
I was wondering if you could provide some insight on the following book description:
"very rare book, in very good shape and condition, missing a little part on 1st page and highlights"
The book that I purchased (not through your organization) had inscriptions in pencil and was used as a coloring book with what appears to be a red crayon on some of the pictures. It was a Baltimore Catechism book.
Was I misled? The seller said that he was honest in his description.
Thank you for your expert feedback,
[signed] X
Dear X:
Off the cuff it sounds like the dealer was not specific enough, and maybe wasn't operating under an imperative to be more specific. ALL DEFECTS MUST BE NOTED is the cornerstone of the descriptive process; as a dealer I am selling a book my customer has never seen and I want them to have the most information possible in order to make a decision. In other words, NO SURPRISES.
In my opinion, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund once you return book to dealer in exact same condition as when it arrived.
Hope this helps, X.
Ezra Tishman
Hi Ezra,
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to respond to my inquiry on book description language.
I was desperately searching online for confirmation that I was cheated on this purchase after being told by the seller that "Thus, I delivered as advertised and promised."
Thank you for your timely response. I took wording from the IOBA website and wrote back to the seller that I felt that the description of the book's condition was "misleading." He did finally agree that he made a mistake.
I thank you and the IOBA website for instilling faith back in me that perhaps the sellers out there are not all "misleading"...I can sleep better tonight.
Mahalo for your time and compassion,
This, as they used to say in World War II, is "why we fight."
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7/15/09
This past weekend (July 10-13th), the SCOE - Sellers Conference of Online Entrepreneurs (sometimes referred to as the Amazon Sellers conference) - was held in Seattle, Washington, and for the first time, IOBA was represented there.
For those unfamiliar with this conference, it was started several years ago very informally by a couple of Amazon book sellers who just happened to live in the Seattle area. The first meeting was held at someone's house, but Jeff Bezos himself attended that year. This year had the largest attendance to date - I think the final registration figures were over 230 sellers and vendors - and it was filled with a lot of content.
IOBA had a vendor's table where we were able to give out information sheets and answer questions about IOBA and we also had a couple of informal hour long break-out presentations. In addition, to discussing membership in IOBA with the sellers who were there, we got some information on ways we can offer additional services to our members. We co-sponsored the Sunday evening "thank you" party for all attendees (we were given a great deal on this!).
While this is an independent conference and not an Amazon event, on Sunday approximately 40 Amazon employees were there to give presentations, meet with sellers, and just in general answer questions. In addition, on Monday Amazon brought the attendees to their headquarters for several hours of Q&A and lunch. Participating in the conference gave IOBA a valuable opportunity to connect with Amazon in a more personal way (see #5 in the IOBA mission statement.)
I think there can be some long term benefits from IOBA's participation at this conference, but perhaps the immediate short-term benefit will be in sharing some of the comments which Amazon made about their plans and commitments for the future.
While Amazon continually emphasized that "customer satisfaction" was their number one concern, the keynote speech given by Peter Faricy, Vice President for Seller Services, mentioned Amazon's growing awareness of third party marketplace sellers as part of their customer base. Amazon is attempting to improve seller education (including videos, webinars and a seller blog) and trying to determine ways in which they can use the enormous information in their database to help sellers sell more. Hand-in-hand with this is their emphasis on constantly improving overall seller metrics (which measures negative feedback, a-to-z claims, refunds, and delays in processing/shipping) on the site.
A few statistics: Amazon has something like 84 million customers, and 1.6 million active sellers (although, of course, that includes the "one-off" sellers). Third party marketplace sellers are responsible for an increasingly large percentage of Amazon's overall sales - from 25% in 2004 to 30% in 2008 and 32% in the first quarter of 2009.
Significant changes on Amazon are coming in three areas which affect booksellers.
- The "charge when ship" program (CWS) which will be in effect later this summer. Amazon is moving more to what AbeBooks and Biblio.com and most of us already do when we confirm availability before charging a customer's card and it is going a step further. The customer is not charged for a purchase until the seller confirms that the book has been shipped. If a seller does not confirm shipping, s/he will not be paid; if the seller does confirm shipping, Amazon guarantees payment. The date of shipping and the carrier (USPS, UPS, etc) are required; tracking/delivery confirmation numbers are recommended but not yet required.
- The second area specifically affects booksellers who might sell collectible books - which I think includes all IOBA sellers to some extent. Amazon has already put in a "gateway" to the collectibles area: a bookseller needs to be approved to sell in that area, but once approved, the listing guidelines become more flexible. For example, the sale of ARCs and proofs for out of print books is now acceptable (this is a trial program, and if it is abused by sellers listing advance issues of very recent books, it might change again). In addition, sellers can (and should) add additional fields to their listings regarding signed copies, the condition of the dust jacket and edition, and finally sellers will be able to have several urls for photos/scans associated directly with their listing.
Amazon will have a special "collectibles" page with additional search features by the third quarter of this year.
The problem of duplicate entries for the same book will remain a problem, although Amazon is continuing working on trying to improve this – so collectibles will not automatically be vastly improved - but the fact that Amazon will be giving these books additional visibility should enhance sales in this area. If you sell on Amazon and some of your books might be those a collector would be interested in (that is, first editions or signed for modern firsts or scarce out-of-print non-fiction books) and you have not yet applied for the right to list collectible books, I would really recommend that you do so. And be sure to mention on your application that you are a member of IOBA! (If you have applied, and been declined, please let me - or someone else on the board - know.)
- The third area will perhaps have the most significant impact on Amazon sellers and that is FBA - Fulfillment By Amazon. If you are unfamiliar with this program, please check it out on the Amazon website - but in its simplest form, you ship books to Amazon, they store them and ship them to the customer when your copy is ordered. Unlike the Alibris program, the bookseller describes/lists the books and sets the price. While the fee structure is complicated - including inbound shipping, storage fees, pick and process fees, shipping to the customer and commission - for most books (unless they are stored for a long time), the amount paid to Amazon (which includes both in and outbound shipping) will be less than the combined amount currently paid to Amazon and the USPS, so there can be some net savings to booksellers, and a significantly reduced workload.
However, the possibility of a greater net margin is not what will drive the impact: Amazon emphasized both that it is committed to FBA (it will be adding 3-5 new warehouses this year specifically for FBA) and that it has no plans to require it. While it won't be required, sellers who use FBA will have significant advantages - their books will be highlighted and shown as eligible for free shipping and Amazon prime. The two big "differentiators" on Amazon are price and feedback (with "descriptions" a third factor for books). FBA wins on both counts: since the sort is lowest price plus shipping, a $10.95 book in FBA, which is eligible for free shipping, will come up before a 6.99 book where the merchant is shipping the book and the customer is paying 3.99 for media mail (a total of $10.98). In addition, since Amazon is fulfilling the orders any negative feedback related to shipping does not count against the seller - thus, sellers who use FBA are almost guaranteed to have higher feedback ratings than they otherwise would have had.
Let me add my perspective here: while Amazon emphasized both its commitment to FBA and the fact that it will not require FBA, they also stated that over 50% of their buyers have never purchased from a 3rd party seller. FBA items are shipped by Amazon in Amazon boxes, with Amazon's return policies, customer service and guarantees. It is Amazon's way of getting those buyers to feel comfortable with marketplace sellers.
Right now, those sellers who are using FBA have an advantage; eventually (and it might take longer with books than with other products), those sellers who do not use FBA will be at a significant disadvantage. Essentially, I see the Amazon marketplace for books diverging into two very different streams, with FBA dominating the "new" and "used" books and the collectibles area (where FBA is not appropriate) becoming much more distinct, and significant.
One final point re FBA - and that has to do with sales tax and nexus: if you use FBA and some of your books are stored in warehouses in other states, then you now have nexus in those states and all of your sales to those states (whether you ship them or Amazon does) will be subject to your remitting sales taxes for those orders.
I am interested in hearing your comments, so feel free to start a thread on the IOBA discuss list; I can certainly expand on any of these points if any members have questions.
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