We attempted to contact Abebooks for a few questions regarding the changes occuring at the site and within listings services in general. To this we received no response. Unfortunately, I feel this typifies the company’s approach to seller’s concerns and is a good indicator that they don’t really have any good answers for us.
The world of online listings services has evolved rapidly in the past 6 months. The unprecedented growth of Biblio, the fee structure change at Alibris
, the exclusive Alibris-BN agreement all have changed the face of online bookseller immensely. I think everyone was surprised to hear about, what may be, a cataclysmic change for Abebooks. In an email sent on 20 September Abebooks CEO Hannes Blum did his best to put a good face on an awful change at Abe- sellers’ listings will no longer be cross-listed on Amazon. This has the potential to be a big windfall for both Biblio and Alibris if they play their cards right. Alibris’ changes have placed it in a strong pouncing position already and Biblio seems to offer the best seller services, but will its sales ever catch-up to its hype…? - I hope so. Also, don’t disregard the possibility of Abe eventually getting sucked up by another (Alibris seems to have a penchant for doing so) listings service as it teeters.
“Abebooks Inc. recently hired John Davis as the online book retailer’s director of technical operations. Before joining Abebooks, Davis was in charge of business continuity operations at Research in Motion, an Ontario-based designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless applications. Davis also spent four years at Datawest Solutions Inc. (Open Solutions Canada) in Vancouver as operations manager. At Abebooks.com, Davis is responsible for the business processes and technical resources for a network of five e-commerce sites, the company says. Abebooks had 2004 web sales of about $130 million.” (Courtesy of Internet Retailer)
