I recently had a buyer go bonkers on me in an email.  They were irate that the book they bought had a tear on the dustcover.  They buyer of the book threatened to report me to Amazon for fraud basically start some sort of boycott against me because I was lying scum and a sleazy seller.  The only problem was that the buyer did not read the item description and even glance at what condition the book was listed under.  They saw the price of the book and click on the buy button.  The book was listed in “Good” Condition with an item description that said “clean text & tight binding.  Dustjacket has tear at top of spine.

Ah yes – the pleasures of customer service.  My initial reaction to receiving this rant brings me to my rule #1 when dealing with customers which is:

1. Pause when agitated – I really wanted to lay into the guy for all his accusations but I didn’t.  I walked away from the computer for a few minutes instead and took a few deep breaths and then responded to the email.

Here is what I wanted to write back to the buyer upon reading their email to me:

Dear jackass,

I assume your are literate given that you purchased a book from me and were able to write such an informed email to me.  Your email gives me pause though  – I thought this person can read and write yet they cannot comprehend what was written in the description of the book - is there something wrong with them? is their email to me a cry for help?  If not then maybe you are just a moron who is too lazy to read a book description that clearly states that the book had a torn dustjacket.  Of course why would you bother to read it – just make accusations that I have committed some great fraud against you (yes – the $5 profit i got from selling you this book has put me over the top to buy a Senate seat).  Anyway – among other thing you can do to yourself I hope one will be to seek the help you need.

Regards

Well-  I simply wrote there must be a mistake and gave them the item description and the link to it on Amazon.  I also sympathized with them that sometimes the item descriptions were not clear enough and if that was the case with mine please let me know.  I then said if they wanted to return the book for a full refund to please do so. 

Writing a professional (or even semi-professional) response can be hard when someone is so obnoxious but do NOT respond in kind.  Just go about your business calmly and pause when agitated.

I am always looking for ways to grow my business without changing my business model (working from home).  My book business is steady and my inventory is at a manageable level.  So, a while back, I decided to see what other was I could grow and tried out dropshipping. 

Dropshipping is basically where you sell other peoples inventory.  Here is how it works – a dropship supplier may have 100 copies of a book which they have listed for sale at $10.  The book would typically sell for $14 on eBay.  You list it and sell it on eBay for $14 plus shipping. You then give the dropshipper $10 plus shipping (and the shipping info) and they ship it to the buyer. 

I have used dropshippers to sell new computer and console games (not books) at my eBay store – thus using my existing store to sell more products.  I sold a bunch but did not think it was worth the profit.  The above example where you make a potential profit of $4 does not factor in fees and making sure the shipping collected is correct.  There is also the extra step of contacting the dropshipper and then hoping they ship it out on time. 

Relying on the dropshipper for the shipping was the biggest drawback for me as it took the customer service out of my control.  I had one person who received a game that was not correct (it was the right game but not the right version).  Nothing negative came of it but I do not like having my feedback score exposed to the service of another business.

It is not hard to tell that I am not a strong proponent to using dropshippers as a secondary business.  I know there are people out there who do very well using them and if you do your product research you can find some great deals.  If you do consider using dropshippers I would consider going through a company like Worldwide Brands or SaleHoo.  Both of these companies do the heavy lifting of finding legitimate wholesalers and dropshippers saving you a lot of time and headache as there appear to be a lot of iffy wholesalers out there.  Whatever you do – do not buy a wholesale list or something like it on eBay.

If you are an online bookseller you are going to need an inventory management system such as The Art of Books.  What should an inventory management program do?

• Keep a database of all your current inventory and all past sales
• List your books on all the marketplaces you sell on – not all systems work on eBay and other sites
• Help you price your inventory and re-price as needed – this can be a pain
• Allow you to track your cost of goods sold and postage expenses
• Help you avoid double sales by quickly removing sold books from all the markets
• Have responsive customer service
• Use servers that are reliable
• Integrate easily with your shipping software such as Endicia
• Be reasonably priced

I am likely missing a few things but an inventory management system should be robust.  There are many companies which provide these services and the pricing for them is all over the map.  I currently use The Art of Books and have previously used Fillz and Amanpro.  I have looked at other services but found their pricing to be nuts for the amount of books I have listed (approximately 2500).

I think The Art of Books is the best service if you are selling on multiple marketplaces.  Their re-pricing is not the best but I can muddle through it.  I used Fillz but it had many issues integrating properly with eBay and their re-pricing was also not user friendly.  Amanpro is fantastic but it only works with Amazon – it think Amanpro probably is so good is because it is a database that is stored on your own computer.  I loved Amanpro but needed to grow my business beyond what it was capable of offering.

A lot of the inventory management providers have slick web-sites with all sorts of claims and neat flowcharts but nothing on the backend.  The Art of Books website looks amateurish (relatively speaking) but it offers excellent value.  I found their customer service responsive (and helpful!!).  The instructions on how to use it were accessible and not hard to follow – so if you are listing on more markets than just Amazon they are the way to go.

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).

Book scouting with a PDA and a Scanner have become the norm for most booksellers.  This means that anyone with a scanner is subscribing to some service which provides them with the data on the book prices.  All of these services are subscription based and charge a monthly fee.  There are many companies offering the scouting service so which one to get?  I have used a few of them and generally lean towards the least expensive service that seems to not have too many people complaining about their service.

Prices generally range from $9.95 a month for Scoutpal to $50 a month .  There are likely other services which are even more expensive.  There is not really a lot different between all the services – they get their pricing info from the same place – Amazon.  They all show you sales ranks and condition.  Some provide a downloadable database (which is great) of the price info so you do not need an internet connection.

My recommendation is go with Scoutpal – they have good service and the info they provide is the same as everyone elses.  Why would you pay more for something that is the same?  I was paying $30 a month for ASellerTool and they were great – early on I had a bunch of questions and they responded asap but eventually I realized I was just paying them an extra $20 a month for no reason. 

If you are new to online bookselling do not pre-pay for a whole year of a scouting service regardless of the discount.  You could end up with a service you do not want and be stuck to it.  It is not hard to switch services so shop around first but start at the lower price point and see if it fits your needs first.