Q&A: How can I sell used books on multiple Web sites?
QUESTION: I've been selling used books on Amazon Marketplace for a few months and would like to expand to other sites. What is the best software program that would enable me to list my books on more bookselling Web sites? I'd like to be able to track all my transactions and sales tax.
ANSWER: Back when I started five years ago, the Seller Engine software (www.sellerengine.com) was available for a one-time fee of $150. Now it's much more expensive, available only as a subscription service, about $40 a month. And it sounds as if you need more capability as far as bookkeeping, etc., which is not handled by Seller Engine.
Personally, the only software I've used for handling my Amazon business is Seller Engine and Intuit's Quicken personal-finance software. I have a business checking account where I can download all my transactions from my bank, and assign them to categories such as books, postage, mailing supplies, etc. This has worked fine for me, but it only allows me to view my total sales.
To figure my sales tax obligation, I use a Microsoft Excel worksheet containing my individual Amazon Payments transactions. I sort the transactions by state in my worksheet, then get a total.
It sounds like you may need more capability. If you need to track sales tax and the amount of each transaction, you may need to integrate Intuit's Quickbooks small-business accounting software with one of the Amazon inventory-management programs.
Are you familiar with the Amazon Sellers message board? It's moderated by Amazon, although anyone can post. If you post a question there, with some ideas of what specific capabilities you're looking for, I am sure you'll get several replies from vendors, as well as from fellow booksellers willing to share their experiences working with various software and make recommendations. There's a wide range of capabilities and fees for these products, so you may want to mention what sort of price range is acceptable.
I know some of the Amazon seller software products will let you export all your transaction data, which could then be imported into Quicken/Quickbooks. One that I know of offhand that has this capability is AMan (see http://www.spaceware.com).
Below I've pasted the text from the section of my book that lists the third-party software available from vendors. Some of them won't handle the kind of recordkeeping you're interested in, but I've pasted the whole list below.
[Update: Since this post was written, another free repricing service has debuted, read more here.]
Bookrouter. www.bookrouter.com
Bookrouter enables booksellers to list their in-ventory on up to 19 online selling venues. Instead of having to upload inventory files to each site, Bookrouter automatically configures the data for each site. The serv-ice offers a way to adjust prices on different venues. You can raise or lower your prices by a percentage, a dollar amount, or a combination of those two factors on a site-by-site basis. Bookrouter also allows you to define a price range for books at various selling sites. It works with Amazon.com, ABAA/ILAB, Abebooks, Alibris, An-tiQbook, Biblio.com, BiblioDirect, Bibliology, Biblion, Bibliophile, BookAvenue, Books&Collectibles, Book-SellerSolutions, Choosebooks, Chrislands, Half.com, TomFolio, UsedBookCentral, and Wantedbooks.
Fees. Users pay $25 per month for up to five sell-ing venues and $5 for each additional site. Bookrouter charges a one-time setup fee of $50, which covers listing on up to five selling venues — additional sites cost $5 each. The setup fee covers testing a sample upload and troubleshooting for each site.
Mail Extractor. www.mailextractor.com
Mail Extractor is an order fulfillment and inven-tory management program for booksellers using Amazon Marketplace and Half.com. The software resides on your PC. The program parses the information contained in Amazon order fulfillment reports and in Half.com and PayPal/eBay e-mails to build packing slips and invoices. Users can send automated e-mail shipment notifications to buyers and manage inventory. Mail Extractor also automates the printing of postage for users of the Endicia online postage service.
Fees. Users pay a monthly fee that depends on how many items they have listed for sale — starting at $6.95 for up to 1,500 listings and climbing to $44.95 a month for sellers with more than 30,000 listings.
AMan for Marketplace Sellers.
www.spaceware.com
AMan is an order fulfillment and inventory man-agement software program designed for either low- or high-volume Amazon Marketplace and zShops sellers. It creates customized shipping labels, packing slips, and customer e-mails, as well as picklists for order fulfillment. AMan also exports customer addresses for online postage printing.
Fees. Users pay a one-time fee of $299. A 21-day free trial of the program is available.
BookHound. www.bibliopolis.com
The company Bibliopolis distributes BookHound, an inventory-management software tool for independent booksellers and dealers in antiquarian and out-of-print books. Based on the FileMaker Pro database engine, BookHound automates entering new stock, uploading inventory, and invoicing customers, among other tasks.
Fees. Use and technical support of BookHound costs $175 per year. A network version, BookHound Un-leashed, is customized for each bookseller and its cost varies. The company has been selling BookHound for six years and says it has about 400 users.
Bibliopolis also offers database development and e-commerce and Web hosting services for independent booksellers. One example of an online bookstore hosted by Bibliopolis is Bray Books, www.braybooks.com.
HomeBase. http://dogbert.abebooks.com/docs/homebase/main.shtml
HomeBase is a free bookstore management soft-ware program distributed by Abebooks, a listing service for independent book dealers. It can be used to manage your inventory and issue receipts and invoices. The pro-gram is available for free download to anyone, regardless of membership in Abebooks.
PricePartner. www.abebooks.com/docs/homebase/HB2PricePartner.shtml
PricePartner is an application for users of Home-Base 2.0 and higher (see above) that allows you to quickly adjust prices of listed books.
FillZ. www.fillz.com
FillZ is an online inventory and order manage-ment system for Amazon booksellers with a high volume of sales. Users can upload their Amazon inventory to many additional bookselling sites. Inventory levels are adjusted automatically at each selling site. FillZ supports Amazon, eBay Stores, Abebooks, Alibris, and others.
You can add inventory using a bar code scanner or your existing software. Fulfillment functions include generation of picklists and packing slips by location, SKU number, and order number. The software also generates shipment confirmation e-mails and works with different online postage services.
Fees. There is a minimum monthly fee of $50 for sellers with under $3,000 in monthly sales. Sellers with between $3,000 and $10,000 in monthly revenue are charged the $50 minimum plus 1 percent of their monthly sales revenue over $3,000. Sellers with revenue over $10,000 in monthly revenue are charged a $120 monthly fee plus 0.5 percent of monthly revenue over $10,000. Shipping fees aren’t included in calculating a seller’s monthly revenue.
FillZ charges eBay sellers a flat monthly fee of $5 plus $2 for each thousand uploaded records, which in-cludes new listings, updates, and deletions.
The Art of Books. www.theartofbooks.com
The Art of Books is an online service that enables booksellers to manage their inventory across several selling venues from a single interface. It includes tools to automate order fulfillment, postage printing, inventory repricing, and pricing information via cell phone. Sup-ported venues include Amazon’s U.S., Canadian, German, and U.K. sites; Alibris; Abebooks; and Half.com sellers with FTP accounts.
Fees. No fee is charged on the first $500 in monthly revenue, but users pay 1 percent of their monthly revenue between $500 and $10,000. A fee of 0.5 percent is paid on revenue over $10,000.
Prager Software. www.pragersoftware.com
Prager has a suite of PC software applications for inventory, pricing, and listing books on Amazon.
The inventory program enables sellers to upload to more than 18 bookselling sites and to generate customer invoices. The pricing program allows entry of up to 30 ISBNs at a time to retrieve pricing information, and a bar code scanner can be used to list inventory. Several op-tions are available for adjusting prices, and Prager’s list-ing synchronizer can be used to alert you to discrepancies in your inventory listings across different selling sites.
The programs are free. A licensing fee will be re-quired for an enhanced version of the inventory program beginning in 2006.
Re-Price Machine. www.repricemachine.com
Doolicity Innovations makes software to help Amazon booksellers adjust their pricing and respond to customer e-mails.
The Re-Price Machine is a free program that en-ables sellers to automatically lower prices to match com-petitors. An upgraded version with more features is being planned that will require a fee.
Doolicity’s Zipkeys is a data-entry tool that enables sellers to store customized responses to frequently asked questions from customers. Users can respond to certain e-mail inquiries with only one click.
Readerware. www.readerware.com
Readerware is a program for cataloging books, music, and video. The software has been used by collec-tors, booksellers, schools, churches, and libraries since 1999.
Fees. The basic version of the program costs $40. There’s also a version for Palm handheld computers.
SellerMagic. www.sellermagic.com
Bordee Enterprises began promoting its Seller-Magic Amazon ListTool in late 2005. The software carries a strong resemblance to Seller Engine but has a few extra features. For example, when comparing your prices to competitors’, Seller Magic enables you to put selected competitors into a separate group.
Fees. $24.95 a month.
ChannelAdvisor. www.channeladvisor.com
ChannelAdvisor Pro is an eBay auction manage-ment service designed for individuals and small busi-nesses. The service helps you organize and track your inventory, and to create standardized auction listings. The service can also be used for eBay stores’ fixed-priced listings.
Fees. ChannelAdvisor starts at $29.95 a month.
Feedback Assistant, Feedback Forager.
www.amazon.wolfire.com
Feedback Assistant automates the task of leaving feedback for your Amazon buyers. Feedback Forager automatically sends an e-mail to Amazon customers who haven’t left a feedback rating and requests that they do so. The customer can rate the seller directly from the e-mail. This company also makes custom software for Ama-zon sellers.
Fees. One-time licensing fees are $20 for Feed-back Assistant and $49.95 for Feedback Forager.
BookRepricer. www.bookrepricer.com
BookRepricer is an online service that compares your Amazon inventory with prices of competing sellers and then reprices your items automatically. Several op-tions are supported for lowering and raising your prices. The company is based in the United Kingdom and sup-ports Amazon’s Marketplace platforms in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Fees. Users pay a monthly subscription fee of $22 or an annual subscription fee of $180. A two-week free trial of the service is available.
BookSku. www.booksku.com
BookSku is an online service that enables Amazon sellers to automate the tasks of cataloging items, proc-essing orders, printing packing slips, and connecting with online postage vendors. The service enables you to auto-matically reprice your inventory, track inventory loca-tions, and send e-mails to customers, among other tasks.
Fees. Users pay $20 monthly for their first 500 listings, $2 per hundred listings between 500 and 5,000, and $1 per hundred listings over 5,000. The number of listings is calculated using an average from open listings reports.
Monsoon. www.monsoonworks.com
Monsoon began offering three levels of online service for booksellers in 2005. The service automates several processes, such as listing inventory, adjusting prices, and managing customers. The service supports sellers using Amazon Marketplace and six other booksel-ling venues. The company says its service can reprice up to 30,000 items per hour.
Fees. Monsoon asks that interested parties com-plete a signup form on their Web site because rates vary by the level of service a seller requires. Company repre-sentatives indicate that fees start at $199 for setup plus 3 percent of monthly sales.
BookWriter Web. www.bookwritersoftware.com
BookWriter Web is designed for booksellers who want to sell items on their own Web site. It automates the process of building Web pages to display your inventory. For booksellers who aren’t interested in creating Web pages themselves, the company will customize a Web site for you for about $500.
Fees. Users pay a one-time licensing fee of $79 for BookWriter Web.
AZGrabber. www.tuffcase.com/AZ/AZGrabber.htm
AZGrabber is a free Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that allows Amazon Marketplace sellers to generate a packing slip, shipping label, confirmation e-mail, and address file from Web pages in their seller account.
Fees. Tuffcase, the company that distributes AZ-Grabber, does not charge a fee but does solicit PayPal donations from active users.
ANSWER: Back when I started five years ago, the Seller Engine software (www.sellerengine.com) was available for a one-time fee of $150. Now it's much more expensive, available only as a subscription service, about $40 a month. And it sounds as if you need more capability as far as bookkeeping, etc., which is not handled by Seller Engine.
Personally, the only software I've used for handling my Amazon business is Seller Engine and Intuit's Quicken personal-finance software. I have a business checking account where I can download all my transactions from my bank, and assign them to categories such as books, postage, mailing supplies, etc. This has worked fine for me, but it only allows me to view my total sales.
To figure my sales tax obligation, I use a Microsoft Excel worksheet containing my individual Amazon Payments transactions. I sort the transactions by state in my worksheet, then get a total.
It sounds like you may need more capability. If you need to track sales tax and the amount of each transaction, you may need to integrate Intuit's Quickbooks small-business accounting software with one of the Amazon inventory-management programs.
Are you familiar with the Amazon Sellers message board? It's moderated by Amazon, although anyone can post. If you post a question there, with some ideas of what specific capabilities you're looking for, I am sure you'll get several replies from vendors, as well as from fellow booksellers willing to share their experiences working with various software and make recommendations. There's a wide range of capabilities and fees for these products, so you may want to mention what sort of price range is acceptable.
I know some of the Amazon seller software products will let you export all your transaction data, which could then be imported into Quicken/Quickbooks. One that I know of offhand that has this capability is AMan (see http://www.spaceware.com).
Below I've pasted the text from the section of my book that lists the third-party software available from vendors. Some of them won't handle the kind of recordkeeping you're interested in, but I've pasted the whole list below.
[Update: Since this post was written, another free repricing service has debuted, read more here.]
Bookrouter. www.bookrouter.com
Bookrouter enables booksellers to list their in-ventory on up to 19 online selling venues. Instead of having to upload inventory files to each site, Bookrouter automatically configures the data for each site. The serv-ice offers a way to adjust prices on different venues. You can raise or lower your prices by a percentage, a dollar amount, or a combination of those two factors on a site-by-site basis. Bookrouter also allows you to define a price range for books at various selling sites. It works with Amazon.com, ABAA/ILAB, Abebooks, Alibris, An-tiQbook, Biblio.com, BiblioDirect, Bibliology, Biblion, Bibliophile, BookAvenue, Books&Collectibles, Book-SellerSolutions, Choosebooks, Chrislands, Half.com, TomFolio, UsedBookCentral, and Wantedbooks.
Fees. Users pay $25 per month for up to five sell-ing venues and $5 for each additional site. Bookrouter charges a one-time setup fee of $50, which covers listing on up to five selling venues — additional sites cost $5 each. The setup fee covers testing a sample upload and troubleshooting for each site.
Mail Extractor. www.mailextractor.com
Mail Extractor is an order fulfillment and inven-tory management program for booksellers using Amazon Marketplace and Half.com. The software resides on your PC. The program parses the information contained in Amazon order fulfillment reports and in Half.com and PayPal/eBay e-mails to build packing slips and invoices. Users can send automated e-mail shipment notifications to buyers and manage inventory. Mail Extractor also automates the printing of postage for users of the Endicia online postage service.
Fees. Users pay a monthly fee that depends on how many items they have listed for sale — starting at $6.95 for up to 1,500 listings and climbing to $44.95 a month for sellers with more than 30,000 listings.
AMan for Marketplace Sellers.
www.spaceware.com
AMan is an order fulfillment and inventory man-agement software program designed for either low- or high-volume Amazon Marketplace and zShops sellers. It creates customized shipping labels, packing slips, and customer e-mails, as well as picklists for order fulfillment. AMan also exports customer addresses for online postage printing.
Fees. Users pay a one-time fee of $299. A 21-day free trial of the program is available.
BookHound. www.bibliopolis.com
The company Bibliopolis distributes BookHound, an inventory-management software tool for independent booksellers and dealers in antiquarian and out-of-print books. Based on the FileMaker Pro database engine, BookHound automates entering new stock, uploading inventory, and invoicing customers, among other tasks.
Fees. Use and technical support of BookHound costs $175 per year. A network version, BookHound Un-leashed, is customized for each bookseller and its cost varies. The company has been selling BookHound for six years and says it has about 400 users.
Bibliopolis also offers database development and e-commerce and Web hosting services for independent booksellers. One example of an online bookstore hosted by Bibliopolis is Bray Books, www.braybooks.com.
HomeBase. http://dogbert.abebooks.com/docs/homebase/main.shtml
HomeBase is a free bookstore management soft-ware program distributed by Abebooks, a listing service for independent book dealers. It can be used to manage your inventory and issue receipts and invoices. The pro-gram is available for free download to anyone, regardless of membership in Abebooks.
PricePartner. www.abebooks.com/docs/homebase/HB2PricePartner.shtml
PricePartner is an application for users of Home-Base 2.0 and higher (see above) that allows you to quickly adjust prices of listed books.
FillZ. www.fillz.com
FillZ is an online inventory and order manage-ment system for Amazon booksellers with a high volume of sales. Users can upload their Amazon inventory to many additional bookselling sites. Inventory levels are adjusted automatically at each selling site. FillZ supports Amazon, eBay Stores, Abebooks, Alibris, and others.
You can add inventory using a bar code scanner or your existing software. Fulfillment functions include generation of picklists and packing slips by location, SKU number, and order number. The software also generates shipment confirmation e-mails and works with different online postage services.
Fees. There is a minimum monthly fee of $50 for sellers with under $3,000 in monthly sales. Sellers with between $3,000 and $10,000 in monthly revenue are charged the $50 minimum plus 1 percent of their monthly sales revenue over $3,000. Sellers with revenue over $10,000 in monthly revenue are charged a $120 monthly fee plus 0.5 percent of monthly revenue over $10,000. Shipping fees aren’t included in calculating a seller’s monthly revenue.
FillZ charges eBay sellers a flat monthly fee of $5 plus $2 for each thousand uploaded records, which in-cludes new listings, updates, and deletions.
The Art of Books. www.theartofbooks.com
The Art of Books is an online service that enables booksellers to manage their inventory across several selling venues from a single interface. It includes tools to automate order fulfillment, postage printing, inventory repricing, and pricing information via cell phone. Sup-ported venues include Amazon’s U.S., Canadian, German, and U.K. sites; Alibris; Abebooks; and Half.com sellers with FTP accounts.
Fees. No fee is charged on the first $500 in monthly revenue, but users pay 1 percent of their monthly revenue between $500 and $10,000. A fee of 0.5 percent is paid on revenue over $10,000.
Prager Software. www.pragersoftware.com
Prager has a suite of PC software applications for inventory, pricing, and listing books on Amazon.
The inventory program enables sellers to upload to more than 18 bookselling sites and to generate customer invoices. The pricing program allows entry of up to 30 ISBNs at a time to retrieve pricing information, and a bar code scanner can be used to list inventory. Several op-tions are available for adjusting prices, and Prager’s list-ing synchronizer can be used to alert you to discrepancies in your inventory listings across different selling sites.
The programs are free. A licensing fee will be re-quired for an enhanced version of the inventory program beginning in 2006.
Re-Price Machine. www.repricemachine.com
Doolicity Innovations makes software to help Amazon booksellers adjust their pricing and respond to customer e-mails.
The Re-Price Machine is a free program that en-ables sellers to automatically lower prices to match com-petitors. An upgraded version with more features is being planned that will require a fee.
Doolicity’s Zipkeys is a data-entry tool that enables sellers to store customized responses to frequently asked questions from customers. Users can respond to certain e-mail inquiries with only one click.
Readerware. www.readerware.com
Readerware is a program for cataloging books, music, and video. The software has been used by collec-tors, booksellers, schools, churches, and libraries since 1999.
Fees. The basic version of the program costs $40. There’s also a version for Palm handheld computers.
SellerMagic. www.sellermagic.com
Bordee Enterprises began promoting its Seller-Magic Amazon ListTool in late 2005. The software carries a strong resemblance to Seller Engine but has a few extra features. For example, when comparing your prices to competitors’, Seller Magic enables you to put selected competitors into a separate group.
Fees. $24.95 a month.
ChannelAdvisor. www.channeladvisor.com
ChannelAdvisor Pro is an eBay auction manage-ment service designed for individuals and small busi-nesses. The service helps you organize and track your inventory, and to create standardized auction listings. The service can also be used for eBay stores’ fixed-priced listings.
Fees. ChannelAdvisor starts at $29.95 a month.
Feedback Assistant, Feedback Forager.
www.amazon.wolfire.com
Feedback Assistant automates the task of leaving feedback for your Amazon buyers. Feedback Forager automatically sends an e-mail to Amazon customers who haven’t left a feedback rating and requests that they do so. The customer can rate the seller directly from the e-mail. This company also makes custom software for Ama-zon sellers.
Fees. One-time licensing fees are $20 for Feed-back Assistant and $49.95 for Feedback Forager.
BookRepricer. www.bookrepricer.com
BookRepricer is an online service that compares your Amazon inventory with prices of competing sellers and then reprices your items automatically. Several op-tions are supported for lowering and raising your prices. The company is based in the United Kingdom and sup-ports Amazon’s Marketplace platforms in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Fees. Users pay a monthly subscription fee of $22 or an annual subscription fee of $180. A two-week free trial of the service is available.
BookSku. www.booksku.com
BookSku is an online service that enables Amazon sellers to automate the tasks of cataloging items, proc-essing orders, printing packing slips, and connecting with online postage vendors. The service enables you to auto-matically reprice your inventory, track inventory loca-tions, and send e-mails to customers, among other tasks.
Fees. Users pay $20 monthly for their first 500 listings, $2 per hundred listings between 500 and 5,000, and $1 per hundred listings over 5,000. The number of listings is calculated using an average from open listings reports.
Monsoon. www.monsoonworks.com
Monsoon began offering three levels of online service for booksellers in 2005. The service automates several processes, such as listing inventory, adjusting prices, and managing customers. The service supports sellers using Amazon Marketplace and six other booksel-ling venues. The company says its service can reprice up to 30,000 items per hour.
Fees. Monsoon asks that interested parties com-plete a signup form on their Web site because rates vary by the level of service a seller requires. Company repre-sentatives indicate that fees start at $199 for setup plus 3 percent of monthly sales.
BookWriter Web. www.bookwritersoftware.com
BookWriter Web is designed for booksellers who want to sell items on their own Web site. It automates the process of building Web pages to display your inventory. For booksellers who aren’t interested in creating Web pages themselves, the company will customize a Web site for you for about $500.
Fees. Users pay a one-time licensing fee of $79 for BookWriter Web.
AZGrabber. www.tuffcase.com/AZ/AZGrabber.htm
AZGrabber is a free Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that allows Amazon Marketplace sellers to generate a packing slip, shipping label, confirmation e-mail, and address file from Web pages in their seller account.
Fees. Tuffcase, the company that distributes AZ-Grabber, does not charge a fee but does solicit PayPal donations from active users.
posted by Steve Weber at 1/09/2006
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