Alibris will provide third-party selling on Borders
The Alibris bookselling network will enable sellers to upload their inventory to Borders after that bookstore chain breaks its relationship with Amazon this year. For six years, the Borders Web site has been a branded version of Amazon.com, but Borders is striking out on its own to try to generate more profits.The company is recruiting new small- and medium-sized sellers with a new "Alibris Basic" service, which will enable "anyone to sell their new and used books, used textbooks, as well as their rare and out-of-print books."
With one upload, sellers will be able to Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders, and Chapters/Indigo.
Here's the entire announcement.
Here's the terms from the signup page:
You can list up to 1,000 items for sale, and you only pay $1 plus a small commission for each one that you sell. If you don't sell anything, you don't pay anything except the annual subscription charge of $19.99.I guess it will all depend on how much traffic Borders is able to drive to its Web site, but there's no way to separate it from Amazon at the moment.
Borders is the second-largest bookstore chain in the U.S. after Barnes & Noble. The fact that there's going to be third-party selling on its site is a healthy sign, I think. What do you think?
posted by Steve Weber at 5/24/2007
4 Comments:
I tried Alibris around 6 months ago because of their B&N bonus.
So far my sales on Alibris are abysmal. I sell one out of every six or even ten sales on Amazon (even lower than my abebooks.com sales which are small at half the number of amazon).
Further, with a $19.99 subscription fee, $30.00 a month,slightly more fee rate than abe, and amazon gives more for shipping.. then only $2.65 for media shipping (and often the item is a text and well, you know that doesn't go far if you have to buy a box, materials, and then pay $1.50 or more over that to ship).
So, what is your opinion? Will this addition be worth staying on?
Debbie K.
I dont think its anything to get excited about. First, the article was written by Alibris, so the enthusiam is coming from them.
Second, If there was money to be made, Amazon would be sticking with Borders.
How is this different than what they already do? Alibris already partners with Borders (and Booksamillion etc). How is this going to vary/change? I see it as a PR announcement of a program but not as anything new with Borders. Borders has always been part of the Alibris Partners program.
"Business partners
"Through our global seller network, Alibris helps its business partners expand their inventory and improve the speed of delivery of items they cannot supply directly. View our list of business partners.
Bookseller listings are also automatically placed with Borders, provided that a fulfillment rate of 85% has been achieved."
http://sellers.alibris.com/ops/saleschannels.cfm
Other partners include:
Ambassador Books and Media
Baker & Taylor
Blackwell's Book Services
Books-a-Million
Bowkers
Chapters/Indigo
Chapitre
Coutts Information Services
Dawson Books
Eastern Book Company
Ebsco Books
Franklin Book Co., Inc.
Gardners
Ingram
Kinokuniya
OCLC
The Book House, Inc.
So since Alibris already puts your inventory with borders (and has for at least the 18 months I've been with Alibris) I'm confused how you interpreted this press release to indicate some sort of "new" Borders partnership. Or am I missing something?
PS Any Alibris seller can check their Borders fullfillment rate right on their Dashbord link.
I think Steve got a little confused on this one. The announcement to which he links is about the new Alibris Basic program, which avoids their monthly fee. No change in their relationship with Borders is announced.
Alibris has always automatically placed listings on Borders, and I routinely make several sales a month on Alibris through Borders. So nothing is changing in that regard.
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