Alibris changes for dealers
Archive: Online bookselling
On and off we get warnings from Alibris that our fulfillment rate is too low.
Oddly almost all of the books are ones that we sold months or years ago and are marked as sold in Homebase. Somehow the book continues to appear on Alibris.
Our Alibris fulfillment rate may not continue to be an issue.
As everyone who sells on Alibris knows they've just announced a reduction of the commission they take. It is dropping from 20% to 15%. The killer is the fees they'll be charging for listing your books.
From looking at the fees I'm not sure we'll be staying with Alibris. Our income from them isn't that high. If we have to pay $60 a month to remain I fear it won't be worth it.
I wonder how many other dealers will feel that way. We'd like to keep the income from Alibris but may have to live without it.
Maybe it is time to try some of the smaller used book listing sites again. Wonder who is still offering a free trial.
2 · Posted by: RebekB on March 30, 2005 12:10 AM
A new, small and free site for used books is www.collectorsbookmarket.com or CBM. They are just getting started (went “live” in Feb.) but they have good standards and excellent search/browse tools. They mainly need to grow their seller base to a respectable level, which may take some time given the competition, but I've been buying there.
3 · Posted by: Richar on March 30, 2005 01:32 PM
Sean,
I don't like the fee structure at all but we can use all the income we can get.
4 · Posted by: Richard on March 30, 2005 01:32 PM
RebekB,
Thanks for the pointer, I'll have to check them out.
5 · Posted by: romanshopper on April 1, 2005 10:05 AM
After the new 'fees' for listing, I won't be selling there anymore. I sell much more at half anyway. I'm not a large seller and I can't afford that overhead.
I thought it was really rotten too, the way they did me. I wanted my service drop when the new fees started, so I wrote them. Instead they dropped me at once.
I'd only been signed up with them for just a little while - just HAD paid the 19.95 registration fee, and thought I was getting a site where it was FREE to list with a normal commission sold going to them.
They infuriated me, changing the rules as soon as they had my money! I didn't have a good experience with Alibris. I will continue selling on Half instead.
Feel free to share your feelings about Alibris changes for dealers. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted.
This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard
1 · Posted by: Sean on March 27, 2005 01:45 AM
We dropped Alibris at once. It was not because of the fee, per se, but rather for their stated reason for instituting the fee. They said it was to encourage sellers to keep their prices competitive. Hell, we don't need them telling us how to price our books. We don't need them thinking, as Alibris always has, that we exist for them, not they for us. And we surely don't need them trying to institute a policy which can have as its logical conclusion only that all books are a buck. BAH!!!
Bye bye, Alibris. We have quit twice now, and won't be going back in my lifetime.