NO .  Online booksellers have access to the largest websites in the world – sites like Amazon and eBay so you think you will put together your own store and sell your inventory there.  The logic of having your own website is that somehow you will save on all the fees & commissions the other sites charge you.  Of course you will need to get your website set-up (fee) find a webhost (monthly fee) and get people to visit your site (advertising costs) all to save the commission that Amazon would charge you. 

If you average selling price for a book is between $10 and $20 the commission from Amazon would be $1.50 plus the cut of the shipping they take.  So you could save almost $3 a sale.  That is pretty good economic sense to having your own website but that assumes you can charge the same as Amazon.  People like Amazon because their brand is strong, the selection is tremendous and their customer service is excellent.  Your webstore – people have no idea.  So why buy a book from you if they can get the same book (possibly yours) from Amazon.  Maybe you will get sales on your website if you offer lower prices and cheaper shipping thus ruining the economic argument of having your own site.

Pricing aside you may want your own site because you deal in a very specialized inventory – be it first editions, signed books, or a niche topic.  You want to be able to distinguish your books from your competitors by offering fuller descriptions and more info on the provenance of the book – these are all thing a webstore can do – but so can ebay.  Here though the economics offer more benefit given that first editions and other collectibles sell for more. 

Setting up your website and getting your inventory on it is not that diffucult.  Amazon, eBay and Chrislands all offer to set up site for you.  I think eBay’s Prostores are the best.  The hard part is making sure the buyer has a good experience and that you are building your brand as a quality bookseller.  This takes content.  Don’t just list your books – tell your story, tell about the books, the authors, talk about different genres – anything that will get people coming back to your site.  All of this is time consuming and hard work but neccesary.  Throwing your inventory up on your own website will be a waste of time and money if you do not do it right  which may mean spending even more money to hire third parties to help.

Once again – if you are just starting out in online bookselling do not go out and set-up your own webstore.  Start on Amazon, then Alibris , then eBay and slowly build up your experience.  Check ot my guide for more info – the link for it is over on the right column under products I recommend (it is the bookselling guide).

Abebooks – I don’t get them and now they do not get me as I have closed my seller account with them.  Their fees and commissions are nuts for the average seller of books.  Maybe they think they are Amazon or eBay and can get away with the higher fees.  After the monthly fees and the per sale commission coupled with low volume they were getting closed to 50% on every book sold. 

Abebooks doesn’t seem to care either.  Some sites try to get traffic and sales – I must get two emails a week from Alibris offering a 10% coupon on their site.   I guess the main problem with Abebooks is their monthly fee schedule relative to the little traffic they get (at least for me).

Biblio does right what Abe does wrong.  Biblio seems to understand that they do not have the sales volume to charge a high monthly fee and they provide options that are reasonable to list a few thousand books on their site.  I have about 2500 books listed on Biblio and maybe get three sales a month from them but that is fine as they do not charge for listing my books there but only take a commission if there is a sale.  Makes sense – they get my inventory and I get access to their market.

Abebooks charges you for access to their market which just isn’t worth it.  If anyone is having success selling on Abebooks I would love to hear about it but also are you making money on those sales after all the fees and commissions?

Another gloomy report in the NY Times again today.  Though traffic is up at Amazon sales are down.  Not good.  I have had good sales so far this month but am I missing sales?  Should I cut my prices to beat the competition.  On Ebay should I offer free shipping?  No – at least I am not – though on ebay I see a lot more free shipping.  I just had one of my biggest weekends  ever in terms of sales and am hesitant to cut my profits for more sales as even some of my very high sales rank books are moving.  If only the books with very low sales ranks (up to 100,000) were selling I would make changes.  Something to keep an eye on.  I hope your books sales are going well also.

The holiday season through the end of January is the busiest time of year for most booksellers.  I would say late August/early September is the second busiest (beginning of school year).  Last year my book sales spiked in December and were even higher in January.  Like many retailers, whether online or brick & mortar, we depend on this time of year.

The holidays are the biggest factor for the sales spike in December but what about the increase in book sales in January?  I think there are several factors to help explain January sales:

1.  Another school semester generally starts in January so all the students are buying their books online

2.  Customer Returns – many people are returning items to Amazon and using the credit to buy books

3.  Gift Cards/Cash Gifts – People receive these for Christmas and redeem them in January.

Hopefully the economy does not lessen the impact of items #2 & #3.

I would suggest that you still have time to increase your inventory to take advantage of this online buying season.  I have approximately 600 books coming from one of my sources next week to be ready for the season.  Library sales this time of year are few and far between so if they are your primary inventory source you will need to look elsewhere.  You will also need all the shipping supplies to meet the new demand.  Last year I was filling anywhere from 35 to 55 orders a day during these two months.

If you need help with finding alternative book sources for the holiday season I recommend several in my bookselling guide which can be purchased here www.booksellingguide.com.

No matter what  – prepare now for the online bookselling high season so you can actually enjoy them rather than running around looking for inventory.

I think ebay is a great market to sell books on once you get over a few hurdles.  The biggest hurdle is getting your books listed on there.  Thankfully,  some inventory management systems have taken away the difficulty of getting your books listed.  The easiest way to sell your books on Ebay is to have your own pro-store there – of course this comes with a montlhy fee. 

Here are the benefits of selling books on Ebay and a quick comparison to sellin books on Amazon.

1.  A large worldwide market.  Once buyers go to Ebay to look for an item they often stay there – they do not navigate out to another site to purchase.  Amazon is similar but I think Ebay keeps people on their site longer.

2.  You can promote higher priced books to show up on the top of searches.  Plus your DSR scores can help your books show up in searches.  Witht the DSR rating system Ebay can actually reward sellers that provide a qulaity experience to buyers.   This is unlike Amazon where books are shown in price order – which drive people to lower their prices in order to show up.  Amazon’s feedback system doesn’t really benefit good sellers very much.

3.  Ebay lets you keep all the shipping fees.  Amazon keeps a significant piece of the shipping costs foro themselves.

4.  Best Offer – this feature is great.  I have “Best Offer” on every book priced over $40.  I get offers all the time and depending on where my cash flow is for the week I accept, counter or decline. 

5.  Prostores – within your store you can further cross-promote your books, have sales and provide info about who you are which can help personalize sales even more.  The Ebay buyer is much more communicative then a buyer on Amazon.

 I will post later about some of the inventory management service that expedite the listing of books on Ebay.  Amazon is still the largest market for selling books online but Ebay is one that should not be ignored.