Amazon eyes rare book market
Amazon today announced several new guidelines for "collectible" book listings.
Although eBay and older book-dealer sites like ABE and Alibris still have the lion's share of the collectibles book market, Amazon seems to be getting more serious about an expansion into the antiquarian trade.
A month ago, Amazon announced its first crackdown on junk "collectible" listings, establishing a $10 minimum and requiring collectibles to be autographed or unique in some way.
Today Amazon announced several more specific rules for collectibles, but added that these guidelines are "not mandatory." Prices must be above the original retail price or $10, whichever is greater. Also, collectibles should be:
- First edition and first printing, signed, inscribed or scarce
- Not ex-library, a remainder or a book club edition
- Further detail on condition/completeness of exterior, interior and dust jacket (if applicable)
- Edition and printing
- Presence of signatures, inscriptions or other personalization
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the real world. By making the new requirements "not mandatory," Amazon seems to be saying they'll be looking at each listing on a case-by-case basis. But in practice, Amazon has enough trouble policing listings of pirated material, let alone borderline "collectibles."
The current practice among many sellers is to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the "collectible" category -- old editions, audiobooks instead of books -- seemingly anything but real collectibles. In fact, Marketplace "collectibles" listings are so overrun with junk that real book collectors can't be bothered to scroll through the dozens of wacky listings on the off-chance a real collector's book is in there somewhere.
To take but one example, here are the "collectibles" listings for "Gone With the Wind." There's just about everything in there except the one thing a collector would be looking for -- a first printing. I suppose for the listings without any "sellers comments" you might get a VHS tape of the movie instead of the book.
I've heard rumors several times this year that Amazon plans to set up a separate "store" for collectibles. If this was done right and promoted effectively, Amazon could grab a huge share of the collectibles book market.
And so these new "guidelines" would seem to indicate Amazon is getting serious about collectibles. But to say they're "not mandatory?" Then what's the point? The new guidelines have instructions for sellers to change their offending listings in bulk. But if the changes aren't mandatory, and there's no apparent consequences ... I don't see what the motivation for sellers to go to the trouble.
With eBay in such disarray these days -- with sellers outraged about increased store fees and slow sales -- this would be a great time for Amazon to make a run at the collectible book market. But it seems a bigger program is needed -- and more resources for sellers to describe their books and upload photos.
Perhaps this is just the first shoe to drop?
posted by Steve Weber at 7/24/2006
9 Comments:
What really upsets me with all of these changes is that Amazon keeps changing the game plan.
On 6-28 Amazon first posted about this, saying that starting 7-10 new listings in the collectible category had to be priced at $10 or list price which ever is greater and sellers had 30 days to bring their current listings into compliance, which I have frantically been attempting to do.
However the new listing at $10 or greater was not enforced on the 10th. They are now though.
Then yesterday, was the next posting, giving another 30 days to come into compliance, with current listings.
Now my problem with that is I'm going to be drastically undersold by the bigger sellers who can afford the expensive Windows based (I have a Mac) bookselling software & who have the computer smarts to figure out how to use it, as they can change their pricing very quickly, so they can wait til the very last deadline and I have to do mine one at a time. Which amounts to having all of my collectible books priced consderably higher than the rest for over 60 days.
Then who knows if Amazon is going to offer yet another extension and I'm going to continously be way overpriced.
It does seem to me that Amazon is trying to get rid of the smaller third part sellers.
Then there's the matter of list price. On the seller side Amazon has one list price, yet if I go in like I wanted to buy the book from Amazon, they have a lower list price.
Futhermore, the list price on the seller end is often considerably higher than the actual list price on the book. So what's up with that??
It seems to me all that is going to do is make the collectible books listed on Amazon a lot higher than can be purchased from other online sites.
I feel that Amazon is being very unfair to their smaller, honest sellers who are doing their best to come into compliance in all of this.
I think the managers of Amazon are totally out of touch with their bookselling marketplace based the the proposed changes during 2006. The collectable proposal is the most absurd of all.
The price of a collectable book is determined by the market, not just by Amazon. Sites like ABE, Alibris, Add All, Bookfinder have collectable listed under $10.
The same dealers who do not currently follow collectable guidelines will be the same dealers that take a $5 collectable and up the price to $10.
There will be a glut of collectable books on Amazon at $10 just as there are a glut of books on Half.com at $.75.
In addition the data base which Amazon is trying to build will be worthless with a $10 minimum.
The problem is the dealers who list books in this category that do not belong there in the first place, and Amazon's inability to manage them.
With this new mandate Amazon has effectively destroyed both it's data base and price integrity of its collectibe classification.
It is clear to me that it is time for new management. As Amazon's sales continue to grow and their profit margins continue to shrink stockholders will wake up, get the message, and demand change.
I personally would not buy a "collectible" book on Amazon. And what book under $10 is really collectible. The thought seems oxymoronic to me. I would buy a truly collectible book from a physical bookstore or on Ebay where I could at least see a picture of what I was buying.
Amazon should really just remove the collectible classification from describing the condition of its books. All book should just be new or used, end of story. This would actually simplify things for buyers and sellers. The buyers know/judge what is collectible and what is not.
Amazon should really learn from the debacle that Ebay has just gone through. Ebay really did not have a well thought out plan with it's Ebay Stores and EbayExpress and are now paying the piper. If Amazon enters the rare book market without a solid, well thought out plan, they may end up paying the piper as well. Amazon would be wiser to acquire one of their competitors who deal in rare books than try to compete with them.
Amazon isn't even sure of what they want to do with their collectables section. I have some signed 1st editions that ARE remainders (they pop up at Waldenbooks and Borders from time to time) and I got 3 different answers from Amazon staff as to wether they would be listable under the new guidelines.
I also have some signed mass market paperbacks that I was listing at $1-2 over cover price. They aren't worth $10, but are nice item for a collecter just starting out. Now I have to decide between overpricing them and only listing them in other venues. I'm glad Amazon is clearing out the junk, I think everyone was sick of seeing modern ex-library, modern w/out DJ and other such blatent non-collectables listed, but I'm not happy about the way they are "fixing" the problem.
I am selling books at Amazon since 2001 , I am retired
and use this to get extra income doing something that
we like . Our average sales are averaging anywhere
from 60 to 100 books per month.We thinking on increase
our inventory and duplicate our sales buy
smart-buying.
I have to get my inventory of 2400 books to 970
because the Amazon's new policies on collectibles.
Our sales was , around 50%+ ex-library very good books
, some signed by author , all in perfect shape.
Due to Amazon's idea that an ex-library book can not be
a collectible { wich I think that they are dead wrong
, customer should decide which book to collect},I
have to unlist them from "collectible" , and have two
choices ,... one listed as used on pages with some
call "vendors" destroy the market with penny sales ,
like the dollar stores did with flea markets and small
business ,...the other is list them on zshops , which
does not work.
If you ask my opinion , I think that this collectible
change is a brain-child from Amazon and big numbers
penny sellers to force people out of collect pages ,
bring them to used pages where they be placed under
this hoags , 4 pages down=nobody will look at them.
So , in order to have really , truly collectibles ,
like Amazon said -"customers", want , I tried to
create a page with a real collectible...
" The Gift of Asher Lev " by Chaim Potok.
First Edition , 1990 , This is a limited edition ,
previous to the release to the first edition ,
privately printed and personally signed by Chaim Potok
, exclusively for members of The Signed First Edition
Society....Dark orange leatherette covers , no dust
jacket as issued , gilt deco and title all around ,
red silk ribbon marker , fully deco.marbelized end
papers , outside edges are gilt mirror finish , text
is 370 pages , as new.
Now , we can call this a collectible , right?...
This kind of special editions do not have ISBN number,
so when I tried to list it , Amazon sign is out saying
"can not be listed becaise it appears in our catalog
in the UK....
?
Hello,
I agree with you completely that Amazon is making a mess of things. They are never going to be able to enforce all these policies they've dreamed up. As a result, honest sellers are going to suffer, wasting time complying with this policy, which Amazon will probably have totally forgotten about 2 months from now. Meanwhile the crooks will be running amok as usual, and unsuspecting buyers will be getting ripped off as always.
Hang in there. I still believe this is a growing business, and that Amazon does have a chance to make "collectibles" work -- if they listen to their sellers!
Steve
Thought this might be of interest. I got this email form Amazon today. I thin k it is the final and definitive word on collectables and remainders.
Greetings from Amazon.com.
Thank you for writing. We apologize for the delay in this reply.
If an item has a signature, it can be considered a collectible, even
if it has a remainder mark.
Thank you for your interest in Amazon.com.
Best regards,
Alliance Program
Amazon.com
Thank you for such a neat read!
Mandatory... Only items priced at or above the list price (MSRP) or $10, whichever is greater, are eligible for the Collectible designation.
It would be a nicer market if collectible and value meant the same thing. I have plenty of signed books that do not sell for $10 anymore. Also, modern collectibles, such as newer signed books, probably will not sell for the MSRP unless it is really new.
There is a lot of competition out there and the other book sites will be happy to receive the signed books that can no longer be listed on Amazon. It is a hardship though, since none of Amazon's software supports a universal change to listing inventory to bring it into compliance. A dealer with a large inventory cannot just change all the collectible prices to $10, since now plenty of books over that price will still not be within mandatory price guidelines!
This means if you have a large inventory, of thousands, you will have to look at each collectible book and make a change individually. That is a hardship in a market where sales are down, and fees are up. I will spend hours relisting when I could be doing income generating work. It would have been far easier to have my inventory in uploadable form where I can mark it as signed rather than trapped in their current state on Amazon.
Collectible book listings not in compliance with the price floors will be removed in the third week in September. It is hard to remember that people who sell through a site are customers in a way too. This is a hardship!
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