Q&A: How can I list my book when Amazon's catalog data is wrong?
QUESTION: Sometimes the descriptions Amazon gives for a book may differ from the copy I want to list for sale. Sometimes the cover graphics or the number of pages will be different. According to Amazon's rules, the book has to match completely.In some cases, new books I've ordered from Amazon have these discrepancies too, but I want to resell them now. How do you handle this kind of situation when listing books?
ANSWER: I have listed and sold tons of books that differed in some way from what is specified in Amazon's "Product Details" section -- page count, covert art, sometimes even the binding. If it's something that seems really minor, usually I'll make a note of the discrepancy in capital letters in my Seller's Comments. I always hope that if a customer pays close enough attention to Amazon's data about the book, that they'll read my description too.
It's a good idea to check these details on each book, because heaven knows we have customers who will take any possible opportunity to complain, like when the page count is off by a few pages.
In some cases, a catalog error is serious enough to prevent books from selling at all. For example, sometimes Amazon has the author's name misspelled, or has the title wrong. In those cases you should submit a correction to Amazon's cataloging department. Usually there's a link somewhere on the book's product page for "Update Product Info."
If you can't find the catalog link, go to Aaron Shepard's Sales Rank Express. (This is also a handy tool for checking sales ranks on Amazon.com and its international sites.)
At Sales Rank Express, after you type in the book info and click "Get Ranks," you'll see a button for "Fix Data." After logging into your Amazon account, you'll be at Amazon's Catalog Update Form for that book. Here you can suggest changes to the title, author name, binding, publication date, publisher name, number of pages, edition, format, language, and language.
I've submitted changes several times this way, and almost every time my suggested changes have appeared on Amazon's product page within a week. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Sometimes there will be a weird discrepancy that makes a book unique. For example, sometimes you'll end up with a softcover while all the other sellers have hardcovers listed with the same ISBN, and there's no product page or ISBN for the softcover. In these cases I'll list the book as "Acceptable" even it it's like new, give a big discount, and explain everything in the Seller's Comments. That has worked for me so far, even though it's technically against the rules.
Labels: bookselling
posted by Steve Weber at 7/31/2007
4 Comments:
Just a quick question. If you had a unique book in like new condition, why would you list it as acceptable and give a steep discount on it?? Wouldn't it be a better idea to create a new product details page for the item and raise the price instead?
I would also recommend taking these older, weirder books and putting them on eBay. When I look at an Amazon listing with words misspelled, colons in the: wrong place and the author's name backwards, I make an assessment. Even if I can make changes to the catalog, would this book do better on the Bay? Take "The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics" for example. I had a hardcover first edition that was worth about 15-20 bucks in its condition. It would have been BURIED on Amazon (look up the book title on and you'll see what I mean). So I put Vintage BEATLES Illustrated Lyrics FIRST EDITION in my eBay store and it was snatched up for $24.99 or something within a few days, foxing and all.
Anonymous, you asked:
"If you had a unique book in like new condition, why would you list it as acceptable and give a steep discount on it?? Wouldn't it be a better idea to create a new product details page for the item and raise the price instead?"
That's a good idea in principle. But when you went to create the detail page, Amazon would ask you for the ISBN, so you'd be back in the Catch-22. I suppose you could claim there's no ISBN and allow Amazon to create an ASIN. But the book would probably take longer to sell (fewer people would probably find it in search results), and you would have polluted Amazon's catalog with a detail page that would probably never be used again.
I'm giving a discount because the product is an oddball item, and I'm listing as "Acceptable" to draw attention to that, and to show the customer they're getting a deal.
The idea stated above, listing the book on eBay, is good. eBay shoppers are more apt to read descriptions.
THIS has been a major frustration for me. After all, all that listing for them, then it doesn't take it about mid-point in the listing process because there already IS one...sigh.
So, I don't think it is truly illegal to let the buyer know "BOOK CLUB EDITION" (and have it at a substantially reduced price). Many of these items sell because it isn't a collector, just a reader, and they want the book.
As for Acceptable when it is really Near FINE ...I have lived with the frustration for over a year of a download in which the amazon system took all of my abe Near Fine and put them as ACCEPTABLE. You can change almost everything about your description except this iron clad feature. SO, I have put ALMOST NEW as the very first word in my description, and occasionally it has sold the item, but often.
I am not computer savy, so I don't know EXCEL, but I am taking a course this fall, and hopefully, soon, won't need to rely on the Amazon template for listing my books (and this manual listing for all three sites, sucks, so, I can't wait!).
Debbie K.
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