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Industry Interview
Marci Crossan, Media Relations, Abebooks
www.Abebooks.com
by Maryellen Duckett
The Abebooks story began on a notepad in 1995. During a boring business meeting, Keith Waters tried to tackle a problem presented by his wife, British Columbia used bookstore owner Cathy – how to locate rare or out-of-print titles for their customers. Waters’ scribbled out a rudimentary design connecting books, databases, and the Internet. With the help of a senior programmer and database administrator, Rick Pura, the notepad idea became the Advanced Book Exchange and in 1995, Abebooks.com premiered. In a recent interview with Bargain Book News, Marci Crossan, who handles Media Relations for the company, shared the most recent chapters of the Abebooks success story.
1. What is Abebooks?
Abebooks is the world’s largest online market place for used, rare, and out-of-print books with over 45 million books listed by over 11,000 booksellers in 42 countries. It’s a website that connects booksellers to book buyers.
If you’re a bookseller, it’s the main site for letting the world know what used, rare and out-of-print books you have for sale.
3. Who are the owners and how many employees are there?
The company is privately owned and has approximately 100 employees. Headquarters are in Victoria British Columbia, Canada and a second office is in Düsseldorf, Germany.
4. Can you explain the different abebooks.com sites – France, Germany, etc?
There are four websites that cater to different countries or regions:
Abebooks.com serves the North American market
Abebooks.co.uk serves the United Kingdom market
Abebooks.de serves the German speaking market
Abebooks.fr serves the French market
If you’re a bookseller, all of your listed books will appear on each site. The main differences are the different languages, and people can buy books in different currencies. Also, the website content is different.
Abebooks created the different sites to make it easier for bookbuyers to find and buy books. And for booksellers these sites really help open up your book inventory to global buyers.
5. Can you explain the role of the independent booksellers’ network? How many bookstores are currently involved and how does that whole aspect of abebooks.com work?
Abebooks started by listing books for four small, antiquarian bookstores in Victoria, BC. Since then over 11,000 booksellers have joined Abebooks. What’s interesting is that they have mostly joined by word-of-mouth. There’s a real mix to the booksellers—the small ones might list 30 books on the site each month. The larger stores include well-known independent stores like Powells in Portland, Oregon, and The Strand in New York City. (See recent interview on The Strand in BBN archives.)
We know that two-thirds of our sellers work from home and only sell books online, and the other one third operates a brick and mortar store as well. In fact, we often hear that our booksellers are using the money they make from online books sales to pay the rent of their shops. Some specialize in only one specific type of book, others provide a variety, some only have textbooks, some only have paperbacks. It’s a real mix.
Right now there’s a waiting list of booksellers wanting to list their books with Abebooks. The prices start at $25 a month for someone listing between zero and 500 books a month.
6. Can you explain the reseller partner programs? What are they and how do they work?
Abebooks provides its member booksellers with opportunities to market their books internationally through major online shopping outlets. Reseller programs are optional and free for member booksellers.
Here is how the reseller partner program works. Participants' book listings are copied from Abebooks to the web sites of partner companies, who in turn present these book listings to their own customers. Partner companies benefit because they can offer their clients a source for out-of-print and hard-to-find books. Booksellers benefit by accessing a larger book-selling market.
Abebooks facilitates its reseller programs by coordinating accounts, inventory, payments and customer service on behalf of both the booksellers and the reseller partner company.
The original Abebooks reseller program, launched in the fall of 1998, was with Barnes & Noble. This has grown to become our largest reseller program to date. Barnes and Noble Program Booksellers benefit from a major advertising power through our partnership with barnesandnoble.com. Customers entering this site can search participating Abebooks.com bookseller inventories for out-of-print books - and Abebooks member booksellers immediately benefit from increased sales.
Another successful partnership is with Amazon.com. Abebooks works with Amazon in many of the world's largest bookselling markets to provide Abebooks sellers the option of listing books through the Amazon Marketplace program. This option was first offered to booksellers in North America (on Amazon.com) in the summer of 2002, and shortly after was made available to member booksellers in France, Germany, and the UK.
Abebooks booksellers who select this option benefit from reduced overall fees, increased exposure to bookbuyers, and an easier way to manage their book listings on multiple sites.
Abebooks also has a reseller partner program with BibliOZ.com. This Australian-based web site, produced by BiblioQuest International, acts as a reseller for Abebooks.com primarily in Australia and New Zealand.
Finally, there are two eBay/Abebooks partner programs. The first is the Half.com program founded in July 1999. EBay’s Half.com (www.half.com) is one of the most visited shopping sites on the Internet. The Half.com program allows Abebooks member booksellers to distribute inventory on Half.com, under the name of Abebooks.
The second is connected to the eBay.com Service Bay, which is known as the world's online marketplace and a popular site for collectible books. The Abebooks eBay service was launched in June 2003 for booksellers who require an easier way to list books on eBay in fixed price and auction environments. The eBay through Abebooks service includes preparation, uploading, monitoring, and management of eBay book listings for Abebooks sellers. This program positions Abebooks as the first "book-centric" listing service provider for people selling used and collectible books on eBay and Abebooks.
7. Can you share with us the number of hits the Abebooks site gets each day or week or month or year?
Every day over 15,000 books are sold on Abebooks. We’re here to sell our booksellers’ books, so we’re always trying to increase this number for our sellers.
8. Do you sell only used books?
We market Abebooks as the source for used, rare and out-of-print books, but in fact our booksellers are free to determine the types of books listed on the site. There are many new books available on Abebooks, and we know that remainder sellers are finding that their books sell well on Abebooks. Buyers are delighted to discover that the sites also sell maps, comics, prints, letters, and writing-related ephemera.
9. What about autographed copies or first editions?
We offer lots of these.
10. Can you give us some examples of what you sell?
Everything from textbooks to collectible signed classics, to cookbook and gardening books, to comics, to paperbacks, to magazines, to poetry to car repair manuals, to bibles, to kids books...I could go on and on but the best way to understand the huge range of what our booksellers list is to visit www.abebooks.com.
11. Do you only deal with used bookstores or do you also deal with individuals?
We deal with anyone who wants to sell books online. This includes established bookstores, individuals, organizations, publishers, etc.
12. How does a bookstore upload the list to you?
Abebooks makes it really easy to upload books to the site. We have a free software program called “HomeBase” that booksellers can use to organize their book inventory. They then e-mail their file to us (or FTP it). We also accept files from other book management software.
And, we have great telephone customer support that helps booksellers if they have any questions about uploading books.
13. How does the shipping process work? For example, is it up to the buyer to decide how to ship the product or do you give an allowance?
The buyer chooses the speed of shipping they want, and they pay for shipping. The bookseller sets the shipping rates and ships directly to the buyer.
14. Can you explain to the uninitiated how Abebooks makes money? Do you buy the book from the seller or do you receive a percentage? Can you walk us through the process?
There are two main sources of revenue for Abebooks:
a. Monthly fees paid by sellers to list books, from $25 upward a month
b. A small percentage of each book sold
15. Can you tell us the most expensive book Abe Books has sold? How much? What was the title?
There is rumor that a Gutenberg Bible was sold via Abebooks for quite a bit. Right now we’ve got some amazing early Shakespeare, some signed first edition JK Rowling, and some rare classic fiction all for over $100,000.00. Again, I urge people to go look for themselves.
16. What are your most popular or featured categories – Home improvement? History? Biographies? Computer-related?
At this time of year it’s textbooks. At others it’s a mix of fiction, non-fiction and a range of genres. Each month we list our best selling books.
17. Do you sell children’s books?
Yes.
18. Do you attend trade shows? If so, which ones?
Yes, we attend a mix of book fairs and book festivals all over the world.
19. What do you try to accomplish at these shows?
Our main goal at shows is to introduce new bookbuyers to Abebooks, get press for our booksellers and the websites, and remind people who already love Abebooks to help us spread the word.
20. Beyond trade shows, how do you market Abebooks?
We have marketing teams that focus on Europe and North America. We use a variety of marketing tools, both offline and online.
21. On a more personal note, what is your favorite book and who is your favorite author? Why?
Thanks for asking! Everyone who works at Abebooks loves talking about books or loves talking about the Internet—or both! I read a lot of contemporary fiction mixed with biographies of authors. The book on my bedside table right now is the new Patricia Highsmith biography by Andrew Wilson “Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith”. I think she’s a great author.
And to give you one example of the range on Abebooks-- there are 3889 copies of Patricia Highsmith books for sale on the site right now, ranging in price from sixteen cents for a paperback to $4,407.68 for a signed first edition of her novel “Strangers on a Train”.
Maryellen Duckett is a Tennessee-based freelance writer for National Geographic Traveler, Family Fun, and On the Road with Hampton magazines. She and her husband, Randall, are co-authors of the family travel books 100 Secrets of the Smokies and 100 Secrets of the Carolina Coast (Rutledge Hill Press).
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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