Richard Weatherford & Marty Manley – ALIBRIS

Manley: As of mid-March, we no longer mark-up the books of our U.S. and Canadian booksellers. We also reduced the mark-up on all other books. This April, we started displaying seller names and reliability ratings with book listings on our Web site, and enabled potential customers to ask sellers questions about their books. Sellers also started to ship books directly to the customer.

These changes are great for our booksellers and book sales have skyrocketed as a result.

We also announced a suite of optional tools that we’re developing for our sellers. One tool will enable you to easily list books on multiple Web sites. Another will help you to purchase and set prices for books based on current market data. These tools will be valuable if you list on multiple sites and want to keep your prices competitive.

Have the changes that you recently announced been in the pipeline for some time? What caused you to rethink your approach?

Manley: We decided to stop marking up books and enable you to ship directly to customers because the market changed. Most of these changes occurred following the launch of Half.com followed by Amazon.com Marketplace in March of last year. Along with Half.com, Amazon brought a flood of inventory onto the market, and as a result, prices have dropped across the board. We have been planning the change since last October.

Do sellers have to “churn” their inventory to get display preference on Alibris? If so, will you increase your technical support and capacity?

Weatherford: Alibris displays books according to seller reliability, not according to how recently a book was uploaded, so sellers who “churn” inventory do not receive a display preference.

I assume the $0.05 price reductions in booksellers’ listings are a sales tactic to get listings noticed. Does Alibris intend to continue with this expense, or is this a temporary measure?

Manley: It is a tactic to sell more books. So as long as it works, we’ll pay for it.

Does Alibris intend to continue to be searched by the mega-site search engines?

Manley: The management of traffic from search engines is more of a continually evolving art than an exact science. Fortunately we have some terrific artists who continue to ply their trade to the benefit of our booksellers.

(Editor’s Note : These mega-site search services actually do the choosing of which databases they will search, and so far as we know, there is no preference given to any database based on whether or not a database advertises with them—it is a level playing field.)

If Alibris experiences an influx of new booksellers, will sales keep up or will booksellers all simply sell less?

Manley: We are committed to growing the market – meaning that we work to attract both new booksellers and new customers. We understand the balance between growing listings and growing demand for books, which is why we continue to invest in building a brand, commercial partnerships, technology, and specialized logistics needed to grow the used and OP book market. We used to be a listing service that charged you money to list books, but not enough money to attract new customers. Even four years ago, we could see that this approach would not grow the market and in some cases would make it much worse. We decided that if we were serious about building a true partnership with our booksellers, it meant that we could only get paid if our sellers do.

Alibris is only one part of the market however. At the moment much more inventory than customers are coming online. The result is that book prices continue to fall. Most booksellers are only vaguely aware of this and are shocked to learn how far prices for most of their books have fallen. That’s why we’re launching a service to help sellers set their prices to the current market price. Despite the number of listings there are on Alibris or elsewhere, appropriately priced books will always sell.

Will Alibris continue to advertise?

Weatherford: Remember, we only get paid when we sell your books, so we have a great incentive to advertise and increase your sales. In addition to advertising, we also work closely with more than a dozen business partners to make our sellers’ books available in places like Indigo.Chapters.ca (Canada’s largest bookseller), through Books-A-Million stores or via Ingram’s iPage, which is used by thousands of independent booksellers. Your books can be ordered by Barnes and Noble or by Kinokunea, Japan’s largest retailer. We also have the OP trade’s only library field sales team which works closely with thousands of the world’s leading libraries.

How will Alibris “police” quality of descriptions and book condition now that it won’t be inspecting these books? Will you guarantee quality and accuracy to buyers?

Weatherford: We respect the professionalism and judgment of our member booksellers. When a seller ships directly to a customer, the customer will be the judge – and if they don’t like it, Alibris will accept the return. We will continue to inspect books shipped to libraries and retailers through our distribution center. So we will continue to guarantee the quality of your books and the accuracy of your descriptions – and customers will be the final judges.

Will you develop a customer feedback program and, if so, will sellers alone be given feedback or will there be provisions for feedback on buyers?

Manley: The initial feedback will be 1 to 5 stars that reflect your fill rate, not customer comments. We have no plans to enable our booksellers to comment on our customers.

Alibris requires that titles entered using Alibris Inventory Manager be listed with Alibris exclusively for 12 months. Do you have any plans to drop this requirement? Will BookMate software remain available?

Manley: Alibris Inventory Manager is a terrific tool and it is about to become much better. In a version to be released in the near future, it will be both free and non-exclusive. It uses only your browser, so there is no software to install or maintain and if your files get corrupted or lost, you just download a new copy of your files from our server.

We have booksellers who have cataloged more than 1,000 books per day and created high-quality records with Alibris Inventory Manager. When we re-launch Inventory Manager it will be backed by the finest commercial catalog in bookselling. The odds that you find a complete record of your book–with or without an ISBN–will be very high.

We do take upload files via BookMate, HomeBase, and various other software applications, and very likely always will. However, we no longer offer technical support for our BookMate product and will not be releasing any further versions.

What shipping options will customers have and how will you reimburse sellers for their shipping costs? On low-end books it seems that booksellers may refuse many sales as there won’t be enough profit to absorb the additional mailing costs, so they’ll cancel the order and run afoul of the feedback of orders filled.

Weatherford : Customers within the U.S. will have the choice of standard shipping and expedited shipping. The solution for standard shipping is USPS Media Mail, for which we reimburse sellers $2.25 per book (which is above the USPS cost of $1.78 for a two-pound package). We understand that a handful of packages may weigh more and therefore cost more, however, most will weigh less and cost less. We analyzed all the books sold by our booksellers and determined that the average book weighs 12 ounces and over 75% weighed under 1 pound and eight ounces. Our solution for expedited shipping is USPS Priority Mail or UPS Ground, and we’ll reimburse sellers $4.35 per book which is above the USPS cost of $3.95 for shipping a two-pound book.

U.S. sellers shipping to Canadian customers will ship via USPS Air Letter Post, which costs U.S.$5.00 for a 1.5-pound package, and we’ll reimburse $6.35. Canadian sellers shipping to U.S. customers will ship via CanadaPost Small Packets USA and will be reimbursed US$5.50 for a package that on average costs just over C$7.40 or about US$4.66 for a one to two pound package.

The reason booksellers in our network receive so many orders is because we have created one of the best shopping experiences for hard-to-find books online. Customers want a simple shopping experience and as it relates to shipping, customers want a broad variety of options at competitive prices.

In the event that a customer orders a multi-volume set or an extremely large volume, the seller can request additional shipping from the customer using the ‘Report an Issue’ link on the Seller Hub.

Will ISBN numbers be required for listings on Alibris after these changes become effective? If so, what happens with older books having no ISBN numbers? Or ephemera?

Manley: ISBN numbers are helpful because they enable us to merchandise books more effectively and to distribute them more widely. But in fact only books published during the past 30 years have ISBNs — so they are not required on Alibris.

Does Alibris intend to continue to maintain inventory of its own? Will you continue to catalog and warehouse books for other booksellers?

Weatherford: We do maintain our own inventory, but we have decided to limit our consignment program to the booksellers currently consigning with us.

What is Alibris’ viewpoint on sales tax liability? Does it lie with the bookseller or with Alibris? Will Alibris collect sales tax on same-state shipments and either pay the tax for the bookseller or remit it to the bookseller?

Manley: We don’t give tax advice, but the key distinction is whether we buy your book from you or sell your book for you.

When Alibris buys a book from you, we receive it into our distribution center. Title to the book passes from you to us before we pass title to the end customer. Because of this, we assume liability for paying sales tax because we, not you, sell the book to the end customer.

When we sell your book for you under our new approach and you ship it directly to the customer, we never take title. We arrange for you to ship the book, so you have liability for sales tax – just as you would if you sold the book on Half.com or Amazon.com’s Marketplace. Like Amazon and Half, we do not try to collect state, local, and city sales taxes for every worldwide combination of buyers and sellers on our system.

As a practical matter, this is a very small problem. If 5% of your Alibris sales are within your state and your sales tax rate is 8%, then the problem of state sales tax amounts to less than one-half of one percent of your sales.

(Editor’s Note : If an issue of sales tax arises on the same-state sale of a very expensive book, contact your Alibris dealer representative about it immediately to see if there is a workable solution.)

Alibris absorbs the cost of a returned book if the book is priced under $100, but forces individual booksellers to absorb the cost of returns that are higher than this. Why is this fair, since Alibris allows returns for any reason and the bookseller has no control over the situation?

Weatherford: None of us likes returns, but in the overall scheme of things, this too is a very small problem.

Many customers are reluctant to purchase items online, sight unseen, so to encourage sales, we guarantee that a customer will like his or her book or we will refund their money. This guarantee helps reluctant customers get over their concerns and it grows sales for everybody. It works and most sellers do the same thing if they have stores. Thankfully, almost nobody abuses this policy, (although I do remember one customer whose reason for returning a book was that “it was boring”!)

Generally it is easier and cheaper for us to just resell returned books than to deal with returning them to the original seller. And in the case of expensive books, experienced sellers factor in the small risk of a return when they price the book. We return high-value books to sellers not only because we do not want to absorb the cost of the book, but because we often lack the expertise to describe specialized books appropriately.

Has Alibris considered paying for the cost of insurance for books over $100 since booksellers are now liable for lost shipments?

Manley: Alibris has shipped hundreds of thousands of books – and the percentage that is lost by USPS or UPS is very, very small. Given the shipping reimbursements we provide, sellers will come out ahead.

(Editor’s Note : If the issue of insurance arises on the sale of a very expensive book, contact your Alibris dealer representative immediately to see if there is a workable solution.

What does the future hold? Will you get big and lower your standards, or will you take Internet bookselling in an entirely different direction?

Manley: The question is not what will happen to Alibris, but what will happen to all of us as the Internet continues to reshape bookselling. It is naturally tempting to assume that the future will be like the past, but with the Internet, this assumption is often wrong.

At first the Internet was lovely – what was not to like? Online bookselling made books easier to find and it brought in new orders. The future looked great, and for specialized booksellers it still does. But the climate is changing very quickly and you can see it in prices. Most professional booksellers who compare their prices with those on Amazon or Half are shocked. Then they compare prices a month later and are terrified. How can prices drop 15-20% month after month? These sellers may feel betrayed or may want to find a scapegoat, but the world has changed around us all.

Successful booksellers will use technology to do much more with much less. That is why we are developing essential tools. Our pricing tools will help booksellers buy and price more effectively given current market conditions, and our selling tools will enable you to easily list and manage your inventory on many Web sites.

But Alibris is the weatherman – we are not the weather. Alibris will not decide which booksellers succeed and which do not. The people who do that are our customers – and they are the ones we should all be very focused on.

Interview by Shirley Bryant.

Brent James – Advance Book Exchange (ABE)

From: Brent James

Interview submitted to ABE by Barbara Lightner

A list of questions covering many aspects of the changes at ABE was submitted, including asking for written confirmations of many verbal assurances and commitments given by ABE representatives during their meetings with booksellers on their U.K. tour. As you’ll see below, none of these commitments made by ABE agents are confirmed or addressed in this response from Mr. James. We show the response from Mr. James first, and then the original list of interview questions submitted to him.

We will continue working with ABE to try to get you answers by the time of the summer issue of this newsletter, as that will be the last issue in 2002 containing database interviews.

Shirley Bryant, Editor

RESPONSE FROM BRENT JAMES AT ABE:

Before I begin, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss Abebooks in the Standard. As a probing reporter, you have asked insightful and in-depth questions. As many of your questions are at the heart of several hot issues that we have dealt with and are still working through, I cannot, unfortunately, respond to the majority of your questions just yet.

We recently launched two new international websites (abebooks.de and abebooks.fr), tested them in the European market and monitored their progress to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. We are now moving towards applying the results of this testing to these sites as well as our English web sites (abebooks.com, abelibrary.com and the upcoming abebooks.co.uk).

We learned a great deal from working through this testing process and received plenty of feedback from our booksellers. At this point, we are still developing and fine tuning our approach, and are not quite yet ready to make public the details of our future plans.

Please be assured that the issues you have identified in your questions coincide with the issues we are currently working for our new web site model. Rather than disclosing partial details of our plans, I would prefer to discuss these questions with you at a later date when our plans are further along and I am able to provide you with the full details. By doing this, I hope to avoid some of the confusion that could result from premature discussion.

I would be happy to speak with you again, through the summer, to educate your members (and ours!) about our upcoming changes. Our Public Relations department can assist you in organizing a similar initiative in a couple of months.

1) First, let me thank you for making possible the special program for IOBA members to search member books only, through ABE. We’ll get to that in more detail later. For now, could you tell us the three most important points you would make to booksellers about ABE? Short answer, please.

We work hard to provide the high level of service our booksellers have come to expect from Abebooks. We have worked very diligently to sell as many of our members books as possible while, at the same time, facilitating not only buyer communication but also assisting buyers to purchase directly from our booksellers. We have never competed with our booksellers from an inventory of our own; we are in the service business, focused on helping booksellers make the most sales possible.

The second point I would like to make is that change is an inevitable part of business. The Internet market for used, rare, out-of-print and antiquarian books has undergone dramatic change in a very short time. In this dynamic marketplace, companies who embrace change will thrive as they adapt to customer/marketplace needs. By listening to the needs of booksellers and book buyers, we are preparing to meet future challenges. Abebooks has always lent an ear to its booksellers. Listening to booksellers is very important for our success. Our Advisory Group has, and continues to play an important role in representing booksellers interests and in helping us make decisions that affect our booksellers. We listen closely not only to our Advisory Group but to other member booksellers, discuss all feedback and work to incorporate suggestions wherever possible before we make a final decision. We are working to improve how we communicate with our bookseller community, so they are informed about how changes in our business will affect changes in their own. Most importantly, we know we will succeed only if our booksellers sell books on our web sites.

2) What are the three most important points you would make to book buyers about ABE? Short answer, please.

There really is only one message I would like to make to book buyers: we are committed to providing buyers with a large selection of used, rare, out-of-print and antiquarian books. We are committed to making each customer s visit to our web sites a pleasurable experience and we will continually improve all areas of our web sites.

3) Advertising

Abebooks is committed to increasing its profile in the consumer market in a number of ways, one of which is advertising. We are always working to learn more about our buyers and choose the most appropriate methods of promotion based on this understanding.

Currently, we are advertising in a number of print publications in the U.S., Canada and in Europe. We are currently co-sponsoring Minnesota Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac hosted by Garrison Keillor, which reaches approximately 2 million listeners every day on over 300 radio stations across the United States. We also attend several major trade shows each year and enjoy sponsoring book-related events. Abebooks works closely with the press and receives regular coverage in print, online and broadcast media.

Information about Abebooks media coverage, press releases and corporate information is available through http://www.abemedia.com or our monthly bookseller newsletter, the Abebooks Update, available through our Members Menu.

4) IOBA Search Program

Once we received the list of IOBA dealers who were listed on Abebooks, the entire process took between 2 to 3 days to put into production on both the abebooks web site and the IOBA web site. First, we set-up an IOBA searchable group for our own web site, and then provided IOBA with a piece of code to place on their web site. This allowed the organization to have its own search box on the web site, which it may not have been able to do otherwise. We have also provided this service for other associations, as listed in the Advanced Search page Bookstores option. This type of service is evaluated on an individual basis, but generally non-profit bookseller organizations are accepted.

Leo Harrison – Biblion.com

From: LEO HARRISON

URL: http://www.biblion.com

What is your purpose in starting a online book database (i.e., to help online booksellers, to get a database that does what you think a book database should do, because it’s a good business to be in, all of the above, none of the above, or ????).

Biblion.com is a natural extension of our shop in London’s Mayfair, where some 100 dealers display their stock. When our site was first launched in April 2000, we wanted to offer booksellers who were unable to display books within our premises the opportunity of participating in the Biblion project.

Is this a long-term commitment on your part? Where do you see yourself and your database in 3 years? 5 years?

Yes, our commitment is for the long term. We wish to grow steadily and constantly strive to improve the service we provide our participating dealers and their customers. In these uncertain times of mergers and takeovers, we remain fiercely independent and have no intention of selling our clients to the highest bidder.

What lister book database inventory programs do you/will you support?

We can accept files from any bookseller’s database that can export files in delimited text or UIEE format.

What are your upload procedures? Deletion procedures? Are “wants” listings available? For sale matches? Are any additions/changes planned?

Our unique upload engine allows dealers to map their own field settings against Biblion’s own field structure. In this way, dealers should not have to modify their databases and once set, a dealer’s field arrangement is stored on our server allowing for very simple uploading of stock.

However, we are always happy to accept files sent as email attachments, should the dealer prefer.

Books can be deleted in batches via our upload engine or individually through our online form.

We require dealers to update their inventories on a regular basis.

Customers can register as many “wants” on our system as they require. They are required to log in to do so. They can choose to be informed of their want status daily, weekly, or monthly and all their wants are held on a page from which quick searches can be conducted. This can save a considerable amount of time for those customers who have permanent wants and wish to run regular searches for them.

No “For Sale Matches” as yet, but this is planned.

What customer service (for both sellers and buyers) do you/will you have?

We are always delighted to help sellers and buyers in any way we can. We provide support via telephone and email during UK office hours: Mon – Fri, 10am to 6pm.

Will you/do you have any quality (i.e., descriptions, shipping, and/or customer service) standards for your listers? If so, what will be/are the consequences of violating those standards?

All sellers are obliged to agree to our terms of trading prior to signing up with us. Sellers are required to keep up to date inventories and to respond to orders and enquiries promptly. Shipping tables (based on destination, weight and speed of service) are filled in by our sellers and provide customers with a good guide as to how much delivery will add to their bill.

Customers are provided with seller’s contact details, should they require more precise quotes.

We are more than happy to mediate in any disputes arising between sellers and buyers, but serious breaches in our conditions of trading will result in the seller’s immediate exclusion from the database.

What are your technical arrangements (in non-technical language, please) to ensure reliability of service? Future growth? Additional services?

We have a good technical team dedicated to the maintenance and improvement of the site. Our database is designed to deal with an increasing number of books and customers. We encourage the reporting of bugs and other problems and always do our best to provide solutions as quickly as possible.

Our dealers already receive discounts on packaging and book protection materials, as well as the services of an excellent bookbindery. We will be adding new products and services over the coming months.

Will you/do you have the capability of taking credit card info for orders?If so, what can you tell us about the safety procedures you have or will have in place to ensure the security of such info?

Orders are placed through our secure server. Dealers receive half the card details by email, but have to log in to collect the other half. The email information is not stored anywhere on our server. We believe this to be far safer than sending payment information via two or three emails and also means that hackers will have no joy with the information stored on our server, should they be clever enough to get through our firewall.

Do you ever plan to process credit card orders through your database (rather than simply passing on the info to the lister) and, if so, will the lister or buyer bear the processing cost, and how long will it take to get payment to the lister?

No plans at present, but a few dealers have asked us to look into this.

Do you have any plans for programs associated with your database which would involve anything other than direct contact between seller and buyer?

No.

Do you have or do you plan to have an “all word search” capability?

This will be considered when the database is next upgraded.

What search capabilities does your database have now? What is planned for the future?

Our advanced search allows searches for:

• Author

• Title

• Publisher

• Keyword

• Published Year (from/to)

• Price (from/to)

• Signed Books

• First Edition Books

• Currency Displayed

Searches can also be ordered by author name, title and price (either ascending or descending)

On what will you base your listing fees? What fees do you have now or plan to have?

Biblion is the only site offering its dealers a choice of either commission or subscription fees. If they chose, dealers can switch from one system to the other on the first day of the month, providing we receive a few days notice. This allows sellers to make the most economical choice according to how well their sales are going.

Fee schedule:

Subscription        

 1 – 999 items listed – £17.62 per month or £176.20 per year 1000+ items listed – £29.37 per month or £293.75 per year

Commission         

11.75% on items actually sold via Biblion (i.e., sales, not orders)

All of the above charges include Value Added Tax at 17.5%

Do you plan to have or now have your database searched by Addall or Bookfinder or any other mega-search site?

Biblion.com is searched by both AddAll and Bookfinder.

How do you plan to advertise your database (both to draw listers and buyers)?

We advertise in most of the major trade publications in the US and UK. Currently we are investing in search engine promotion via a specialist company. Biblion.com, of course, benefits from all of the widespread display advertising promoting the Mayfair shop and is brought to the prominent attention of the many visitors our shop receives. No big budget extravaganzas, but the larger we grow the more money we will spend on promotion.

What background or experience do you or other people involved with your database have that relates to the online book or online book database business?

I have been a bookseller for many years and opened the Biblion shop after much discussion with the trade and my customers. My colleague, Sebastian Gray, runs his own I.T. company (ItLab), so we feel that we launched Biblion.com with a good mix of trade experience and technical know-how. However, we are ever conscious of suggestions and comments received from both sellers and buyers and realize that continued improvement is vital to our long-term success.

Do you or are you planning to have professional management, bookseller management, or????

No plans

What markets (geographical and/or demographic) are you aiming at?

Biblion.com initially concentrated on the UK market. However, the internet is global and we soon found dealers from all corners of the world wishing to list their stock with us. The buyers who visit our site are also truly international.

What services/features does your database have that you feel sets you apart and/or will ensure the success of your database?

Our unique fee schedule (commission or subscription) allows our dealers to get the best value for money according to their circumstances.

Our unique upload engine enables our dealers to map their own databases with our own and allow for very simple uploading of stock.

Our simple Quick Buy ordering process enables customers to purchase the books they want with the minimum of fuss and safe in the knowledge that their card details will be sent securely.

Time saving quick searches of registered wants.

We always do our very best to attend to enquiries and problems.

Overall, our commitment to Biblion.com is passionate and this provides us with enough enthusiasm and dedication to ensure our longevity. Also, I think the great majority of our customers quite like us!

Please tell us anything you’d like about yourself and/or your database, and thank you for participating.

Biblion Mayfair: our shop was opened in April 1999.

Biblion.com was launched in April 2000.

Biblion.com currently has about 500 registered dealers (this figure is growing daily) and over 2.5 million books listed.