[Ed. note: ACQNET-L is departing somewhat from our strict
"non-commerical" policy
here in order to allow for the below response. We encourage and will
post other OP
vendors' responses to this issue. PLEASE, however, respect ACQNET-L's
ban on
advertising. We realize that in order for representatives to speak about
company practices, we have to bend a little here. Thanks!]
The below reply refers to the posting on 1/23/03:
http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/03/0006.shtml
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 07:45:15 -0500
From: Bill Kane (Alibris) <billk_at_alibris.com>
Subject: RE: ACQNET: Identity theft in the OP world
Thanks, Eleanor, for bringing this issue to the fore. Since your
message
was posted right before ALA Midwinter, librarians have been asking lots
of
questions about how Alibris handles these kinds of sellers and
situations, and I've
done some discovery, and would now like to pass along a summary of our
findings and position on the matter, for what it's worth.
--Do some used booksellers "use" other sellers listings, thereby causing
grief?
There are indeed somewhat infamous examples of this in the industry -
sellers who copy listings from other sellers, mark them up, and post
them
to their own Web sites, and, yes, it does still happen on many Web
sites,
despite best efforts to eliminate this practice. At Alibris, we've
removed
several of these kinds of sellers, and have thus stripped our database
of
their redundant listings.
While Alibris does remove offending sellers from our network, we do so
for
cause -- such as frequent problems with mis-described books, poor fill
rates, high return rates, or late shipping that cause customers and
ourselves problems.
On the other hand, sometimes folks who use other people's listings have
actual services that are either taking books on consignment (i.e., they
inventory, catalog and sell the books for someone else) or are helping
sellers manage their inventory online - these are valid businesses.
Clarifying who's who can be a challenge, but one we actively pursue
through
feedback and information gathering.
In any case, Alibris has not always responded to a seller's requests to
have fellow (and/or competing?) sellers removed. We review our policies
and
try to assess each situation in a fair and impartial fashion. To date,
we've
had only one seller who has complained about this particular issue, but
because of this we have removed more sellers recently.
We are absolutely open to (and in fact are very interested in)
libraries'
concerns on this and other seller issues. Because, generally speaking,
libraries who get overpriced and mis-described books aren't happy and
don't
come back. We work with over 5,000 library customers, including most
ARL
libraries, and we need to keep them happy and generally do -- in a blind
survey, 97% of our customers said they were Satisfied to Extremely
Satisfied with their experience. In our part of the book trade, when
your offerings
include a well-managed network of very good, professional, independent
booksellers and an array of valuable services backed by a solid
guarantee,
you get customer satisfaction.
--How big a problem is this?
For our part, we've audited our database, and can report that less than
10%
of our inventory had some form of a "markup" a year ago, down from 15%
the
year before that -- and the average markup was 20% (not 200%). We
continue
to counsel, warn, and remove sellers on this price markup basis - but
the
used book market is pretty efficient these days and highly price
competitive, and sellers are generally already on their toes!
--How can libraries deal with this issue as book buyers?
We'd suggest you ask at least these questions:
1) What's the guarantee you get from the company from whom you are
buying?
Alibris has a 100% satisfaction guarantee: anything you don't like for
any
reason can be sent directly back to our warehouse for a full refund, no
questions asked, eliminating the risk of negotiating with the individual
bookseller about whether they will or won't take the book back - or if
they're even "real" or not.
So if something like the scenario "you might order a book listed in
excellent condition, and be shipped an ex-library copy with loose hinges
and yellow-highlighter throughout" should occur, it becomes an Alibris
problem,
and not the library's problem (apart from returning the book).
Additionally, we screen materials that come through our warehouse for
quality assurance purposes, and are in the position to "intercept"
mis-described books.
2) Does the Web site monitor its supply network and do something about
"bad" sellers?
Alibris monitors its sellers' fill rate, ship times, Quality Assurance
issues and returns. If there are a sufficient number of bad events (QA
issues noted in our warehouse or returns), we remove the seller. A
couple
of mis-described books may be human error (or even differences of
opinion),
but multiple mis-described books may be fraud - and it's fraud that we
pay
for, not our customers. So, it's in our interest to monitor sellers'
performances, not only to try to ensure customer satisfaction but also
because we pay for the cost of returned books. Additionally, since
Alibris
does not take a monthly listing fee from our sellers, we have no
compunction against removing sellers with many (and/or false) listings
but
low sales and/or bad service.
3) How do you know if you can trust the bookseller?
One way is by seller ratings. On some Web sites, you can read feedback;
Alibris rates sellers by reliability (percentage of orders filled) and
other factors like this. Sellers who are "taking" other people's
listings
generally have poor order fulfillment rates (which one is likely to sell
first: the $25 listing, or the $75 one?) and bad feedback. If you don't
see a rating or sufficient feedback, you don't have to pick that copy of
the
book. On our retail Web site, we give the seller's rating. On our
library
Web site, we pull everything through our warehouse for Quality Assurance
(always with a satisfaction guarantee).
4) Is this leading to price escalation in the OP market?
Statements like "these market conditions are causing artificial price
inflation, since legitimate dealers are forced to inflate their prices
to
keep up" actually contradict the normal workings of supply and demand.
If
someone's got a book for $25 and someone else hi-jacks the listing and
marks it up to $75, would someone else necessarily raise their copy's
price to
$80? There are limited times when a seller may be "fooled" into pricing
a
book north of its normal demand price because they see a "marked up"
listing from a copier - but usually, they'll see the original listing as
well, and
the market responds in any case.
Factually, most booksellers see prices dropping. Alibris re-prices the
books in our warehouse on a monthly basis - over one million used and
out
of print books. Over 70% of the items drop in price every month, on an
average of 10-20%. Some items do go up in price, and prices do
fluctuate.
However, as the supply of used books online has increased over the past
three
years, prices have come down radically -- ask any used bookseller!
So, all that said, we are aware of this particular problem, and hope you
are too, and believe that by working together libraries and booksellers
can
continue to respond appropriately. In fact, we would encourage this
discussion to continue -- perhaps via full cost system pricing
articles/studies in
_Against the Grain_ or _College and Research Libraries_.
In any case, can there be any doubt that the online book business is
challenging and interesting work -- on both sides of the buying and the
selling equation?
Regards,
--Bill
____________________________________________
William P. Kane, MLS
Regional Sales Manager, Library Services
Alibris - Books You Thought You'd Never Find
www.alibris.com/library
877-893-9102 (toll free)
586-493-9148 (fax)
Received on Sun Feb 16 2003 - 11:51:43 EST