ABE - good thing or bad thing ?

Hi,

My wife and I are in the book trade and looking for new outlets - has anyone bought/sold books on Abe, and if so, how did you find it ?

Would appreciate any comments.

I posted a reply over on the other Brit group.

Cheers, pal. Anyone else got any thoughts on this ?

sorry about that, got impatient and kept clicking mouse without thinking - my wife hates it when I do that !!!

Seriously, any thoughts on Abe anyone ?

I've only bought books on the ABE site and have found everything ran smoothly, the books as ordered and no disappointments. As I'm not in the trade I've used Amazon to sell any of the books (mostly non-fiction) that I no longer had room for. Good luck with any future business.

I managed to find a book I'd been tracking for 15+ years when my standing ABE search turned up a copy. So yes, I like the site.

#1 nickhoonaloon: Got 3 or 4 books from them - all on the Lancashire Textile Industry. (Got one then the others as a result of the reading list in it). Found it very efficient and the books would have been very hard to source from Inverness where I live. In cases where three or more copies were available (from different sellers) there was a sometimes a huge difference in prices. Usually went for the cheapest unless it had obvious faults and was more than happy with what I got.

Just joined. I've used ABE to track down out-of-print books that I wanted, but I use UKBookWorld as well; it regularly sends me email to say that a pile of books I can't afford are on the market - on the other hand, I gave in when it came up with the third part of Gormenghast in a matching first edition, just about affordable since no dust jacket, but then the two I already had didn't have dustjackets either. I feel quite smug when I look at them.

Well, I can answer ny own question now, to some extent. We haven`t used Abe for business purposes, but I have filled some gaps in my W E B Du Bois collection using their service, most recently, an ultra-rare booklet by Du Bois, Benjamin franklin, which i got from an excellent English seller, `Left On The Shelf`, who has the great good fortune to live in Kendal, UK.

I`ll look out for UKBookWorld.

Going back to Abe, I notice some sellers are asking ludicrous prices without any apparent justification. I`ve heard it said that the effect of E-Bay tends to be to push prices down, whereas Abe seems to work the other way. The first part I think is true, the second I`m not convinced about. What do others think ?

Very much interested in Benjamin Franklin book by DuBois but can't find anything about it on line. Can you provide more information?
Thanks

#13: Going back to Abe, I notice some sellers are asking ludicrous prices without any apparent justification. I`ve heard it said that the effect of E-Bay tends to be to push prices down, whereas Abe seems to work the other way. The first part I think is true, the second I`m not convinced about. What do others think ?
I'm probably just repeating my #11 post but I found widely different prices for the same book (on abe). I'm talking here of perhaps 3 to 5 available copies of books on a particular topic. My experience suggests low prices are nothing to do with the copy being in bad condition. Perhaps the seller just felt the book was outside his normal range or needed to make space. On the other hand your post indicates that you have an interest in rare books so condition may matter more - a couple of mine had library stamps but they weren't torn or had lots of ink annotations. Very readable but not pristine.

Prices on UKBookworld are pretty variable too, mostly with justification, I think - mostly I'm looking for out of print books and often searches range from really cheap, "ordinary" copies, which may still be in very acceptable condition, to first and second editions variously at much higher prices. I spend quite a bit of time in second hand bookshops too, and I think prices are fairly comparable. I try to buy from the sellers I've used before, where possible, which means I've already found they supply copies in good condition at a reasonable price; then, if they are charging a lot, I presume it's not so readily available.

I do think selling a book with lots of ink annotations without mentioning it is utterly unreasonable though! I hate people who do that, even when they are correcting an author's bad grammar - makes them unreadable, IMO. Aargh!

#14 Gautherbelle

I`ll reply to your profile page so as not to interrupt these good people and thir discussion.

#16 GeraniumCat

Selling books with ink annotations without mentioning it is shocking practice. Even worse is the idea of some pedant correcting the author`s grammar !

PossMan

Returning to your comments on the pricing of books - of course where rare books are concerned, different businesses could have different pricing strategies because they have different objectives - traditionally, antiquarian booksellers tend to go for the highest price they can get, and are prepared to wait almost indefinitely for the right customer to appear. Whether or not that was ever a good strategy (I`m unconvinced), it tends to be the favoured approach of people primarily involved with `bricks and mortar` shops (i.e. not online), especially in tourist areas. Where traders are selling entirely online, the emphasis tends to be on quicker sales.

It probably is a question of `horses for courses` - I have a friend who does not sell online, and has books in his shop that have been there literally for years on end. To me, that`s suicidal, but then again, in the time I`ve known him, he`s opened a second branch and paid for his son to go to university, so he must be doing OK.

On th other hand, we`re 100% online and often manage to sell within the trade, which he can never do.

Anyway, that`s enough of that, but it is interesting - to me at least !

I found ABE really good for a long time until the first time a book I'd ordered didn't arrive. All my emails were ignored. Luckily it was single book worth about £5 but, as I much more frequently buy my books in batches of £50 or more, that isn't something I'm willing to risk happening with a larger order so it's bye-bye, ABE for me. You could try The Book Depository who are much more helpful.