/ Bookseller Central

Customer Support Tip: Sending Regular Inventory Updates


By Ian

We recommend uploading updated inventory files often, though the exact frequency depends on the number of books you add, edit and sell each day. Here are some of the benefits of regular uploads:

  • You can prevent AbeBooks orders for items sold to customers in your store or on other marketplaces, reducing rejected orders and increasing your fulfillment rating.
  • If you're editing your listings, uploading more frequently ensures that the most up-to-date prices and descriptions are available for buyers.
  • The sooner your new listings are online, the sooner buyers can find them to make a purchase!

Best Practices

  • Send an updated inventory file to AbeBooks each day that your inventory changes.
  • Purge and reload your inventory a few times a year to re-synchronize your data between the AbeBooks Web site and your local copy.

Coming Soon: LibraryThing Recommendations

Buyers have always loved to search for books on AbeBooks: search and the refinements provide many ways to find just the book they're looking for. Buyers browsing without a specific title in mind have been more limited on our Web site. Starting next month, we'll provide browsers with recommendations based on data from LibraryThing.com users when they view the Listing Details page. We hope to increase the number of books per order, and to encourage more browsers to buy, with these recommendations.

What are LibraryThing recommendations? LibraryThing.com is a social networking Web site where users catalog, rate and review their books, and compare libraries. More than nine million books have been cataloged so far! LibraryThing recommendations are unique because they're based on books owned and read by bibliophiles, not on purchasing history.

Here's a sneak peek of the new Listing Details page with recommendations:

Bookseller Summit 2007

For this year's 2nd annual summit, we want to focus on our rare and antiquarian booksellers. We therefore invited representatives of international bookseller associations who specialize on the rare book trade.

The Invitees

The president of each of the following organizations has received an invitation to our Bookseller Summit after the California International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco in February: ILAB, ABA, ABAA, ABAC, AILA, ANZAAB, NVVA, SLAM. The president can attend, or pass their invitation on to another member of their organization.

The Agenda

  • The results of our 2006 Bookseller Survey
  • Creating and preserving quality standards and customer satisfacton in the rare book trade
  • Searching, finding and promoting rare/unique books on the Internet
  • Security and fraud protection
  • Collecting and analyzing data on the Rare Book Market
  • Next generation of book collectors: together, how can we help preserve the future of book collecting?

Attending association representatives have been kindly asked to add additional items to the agenda. We recommend that you contact your association if you'd like to find out more information about the agenda items they're requesting.

We will provide more information about who's attending and the agenda once this information has been finalized.

Book Fairs 2007

In the coming months, AbeBooks representatives will be attending both the 40th Annual California Antiquarian Book Fair and CAMEX. Details are below: we hope to see you there!

40th Annual California International Antiquarian Book Fair

Next month, San Francisco hosts the 40th California International Antiquarian Book Fair with more than 240 booksellers from the world gathering to display and sell rare books from almost every genre imaginable.

Date: February 16-18
Location: Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco, CA

CAMEX

Shaun and Marc of our Sales and Account Management Team will be presenting a seminar called "Selling Books online: An Inroduction" on Friday, March 23rd. Learn more and sign up on the CAMEX Web site. (Please note that the CAMEX Web site will be updated soon with Shaun and Marc, instead of Sue, as the presentors.)

Date: March 25-27
Location Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL, Booth 718