Bookseller Topic 1: Why did Abebooks have this summit, and what did you hope to accomplish? Do you think it was successful?

After the closing of the “reseller programs” (Amazon, Half, B&N) last Fall, and the site problems we experienced at roughly the same time, we thought it was important to invite booksellers to come to our Victoria head office and meet us face to face. Why? Because we wanted to share with you first-hand our plans for the future, and give you some background into how we work and what we do, to help put our decisions into a broader context. We wanted you to meet the people that are working every day to sell more of your books, and give all of us a more complete perspective and the chance to ask each other some questions. We also wanted to meet some booksellers that we don’t normally get the opportunity to meet when we travel to trade events in major markets.

All of this was to open up a more constructive dialog – not just at the summit, but by email and telephone, forum and roundtable, in the weeks and months that follow. There is a team of experienced people working hard, interested in what you have to say, and with one goal in mind which they share with you: to sell more of your books.

So yes, we think we successfully achieved all of these objectives, and we look forward to doing it even better next year.

Bookseller Topic 2: Why did you pay for some booksellers to come? Why didn’t you spend more money? (Why didn’t you spend less?)

We knew this would be a more valuable experience for all involved if booksellers from all over North America came, but that many wouldn’t be able to because of the cost (both in terms of time and money). So we decided to invite 10 booksellers, all vocal and critical in our Bookseller Forums, to attend at our expense. Our objective here was to avoid any conspiracy theories: that we only invited the people who “like us”, and kept away anyone with an opinion of their own. We also wanted booksellers who have a deep understanding of their business and are not afraid to speak up, or to participate in discussions with their peers.

We covered the big expenses for the invited guests only, from Thursday to Sunday: planes and hotel, transportation to and from the Victoria airport, all meals for Friday. Participating in the photoshoot was optional, and the method of transportation to the photoshoot was also optional.

Bookseller Topic 3: What meaningful information did we share with the attendees?

1. We officially announced the new mission statement and brand mantra.

2. We announced the change to our credit card processing policy on Visa & Mastercard, and engaged in an open discussion about this controversial change in our model.

3. We announced that we have hired an ad agency (Rethink, based in Vancouver), for the first time ever, to deliver an exciting new creative campaign in honor of our anniversary year.

4. We announced some detailed plans for our anniversary marketing campaign, which include some exciting promotions (including a trip around the world to visit 10 bookstores in 10 cities), a major print and online marketing campaign, and more.

5. We shared some detailed, confidential statistics on your buyers, what they’re looking for, what their book-buying behaviors are, and what makes them loyal to Abebooks.

6. We gave a completely unedited view of our upcoming product roadmap through the next several quarters.

7. We gave insights into the online marketing space, and where and how we compete for buyers.

8. We showed search/browse enhancements, our new HomeBase 3.0, and some new Online Inventory Management tools.

9. We had a good discussion on seller rating systems and what you would like to see to launch the development of this product

10. We gave insights and statistics regarding our systems and operations.

11. We gave booksellers the chance to meet with our Customer Support team and ask questions about policy and procedure.

12. We included a detailed summary of the recent BISG used book industry study (which will be available for purchase from BISG later this year).

13. And finally, we introduced the entire team – from CS to the CEO - and quite a few of your fellow booksellers as well.

Bookseller Topic 4: The Abebooks Mission Statement

Our Mission Statement: “Our mission is to help people find and buy any book from any bookseller anywhere.”

Since we introduced this at the summit, many booksellers have said that this mission statement proves that we don’t care about books or booksellers, and we are just “turning into another Amazon”. In fact, we believe that this mission statement confirms that we are NOT “becoming Amazon”, and ask everyone to consider it a little more closely. It arises directly from information that your customers have given us about what they want from Abebooks, and about what we know makes us different and powerful in our market:

  • “Book” means we are not going into other areas of merchandise. Not DVDs, not CDs, not barbecues or jewelry. Books. That matters to people who buy them, and to people who sell them. And it differentiates us in this category. It is important, and it is a positive.
  • “Bookseller” means we are not opening up our marketplace to private sellers who want to offload Aunt Mary’s Harlequin Romance collection. It means we retain our business model, made for professional booksellers. Nobody with 10 comics who’s looking for a way to afford a new pair of sneakers or a spa-head for their shower is going to pay a monthly subscription fee. This benefits booksellers, and real book buyers. This is also important, and a positive.
  • “Any”. This means that we are continuing to build our selection of all types of books to be the most unique selection in the world, as it already is. It means that we are a level playing field for all booksellers, regardless of their geographical location or the type of books they sell, as long as they have the legal right to sell the books they list. Any book, from any bookseller, anywhere. This is good, both for sellers and buyers. It is what makes Abebooks different.

Bookseller Topic 5: Way too much information was packed into the day. It should have been two days.

Yup, we agree, it was too much information for the day. But it came from the right place: we wanted each department to have a chance to put themselves in front of you and explain what they do and take questions.

It’s true that two days would have been better in some ways, but getting to Victoria is a time-consuming, costly undertaking. We already had received feedback that it was just too far to come, too much time to take away from business, and too difficult to manage. Having the event over two days would have made it even more difficult for booksellers to attend – the group would have been smaller, and less diverse. Some would have only been able to attend one day anyway, and they would have had to miss some important sessions.

We were eager to share some hard facts, and provide more insight into what is happening on the marketplace as a whole. Sharing confidential information about your buyers, how and why they shop on our site, our technology, our product plans, etc., was meant to open a more productive dialog. If we tried to tell you too much, well, we think we erred on the right side. We’ll try to achieve a better balance next year.

Bookseller Topic 6: Saturday was a complete waste of time.

This may be true. The reason Saturday was a free day was to give the booksellers who came so far an opportunity to see Victoria, to meet with one another, to do some book-hunting if they chose. We also had our optional bookseller photoshoot on Saturday. It was meant as a generous gesture.

Bookseller Topic 7: The whole Summit was purposely planned to introduce the new Credit Card Processing model.

It simply happened that the Summit provided a timely opportunity to make this announcement. We’ve known for some time that the change would probably come, but weren’t sure of the exact timing until January, so the Summit was the natural time to make the news public.

Mythbusters: Clarification of a few more details from the booksellers reports:

  • We aren’t building a glamorous new office building from the foundation up. As nice as that would be, we’re just moving into one floor of a new building that is currently under construction, in basically the same neighborhood we’re in now. We’re moving because we need more space and want to reunite the Customer Support department with the rest of the company.
  • Questions in 1Q1A are not answered by Marketing but by KMG (Knowledge Management Group), which is the team (Jennifer and Kathleen) responsible for creating all communication regarding our site and how it works. They also write the messaging used by CS, the Help on the site, and user guides for products such as HomeBase, etc. KMG is within the marketing and communications group but they do not “do marketing”, and they are very closely linked with Customer Support.
  • Neither Blackwell’s, nor any other bookseller, has ever received any kind of “Sweetheart deal” to be featured on our homepage or anywhere else. That offer is available to any bookseller who would like to take advantage of it, and has the books and ability to support it. Just e-mail us at features@abebooks.com.
  • We didn’t put hundreds of hours of preparation into the summit slides, but we’re glad it looked like we did. Thanks for the compliment! This information is part of our day-to-day work experience and exists in a ready format at any time.
  • We do work hard to police the listings and keep them as clean as possible. We appreciate your help when you find someone who is abusing the system, but we can’t delete them simply on the basis of an e-mail to our CS team. There are procedures in place that protect all booksellers, and we all have to respect them.
  • It’s true that most Abebooks booksellers never POST in the forums, but many of them watch what’s going on in there. We have pretty accurate software that tracks activity, and be assured there are thousands of booksellers who take a peek at these postings every week.
  • The Abebooks Bookseller Digest really does get sent to all booksellers, unless you've specifically requested not to receive it. Every bookseller only has one e-mail address on file with us, and we track the open rates (averaging over 50%) and confirm via our e-mail software that the e-mails go out and are received. If you’re really not getting the newsletter, we suggest you check your spam filters, and be sure to add 'booksellerdigest@abebooks.com' to your whitelist, safelist or address book to ensure our messages can reach you.
  • We are not trying to eliminate buyer/seller communication. The communication channels remain open, and in fact are better than ever.

Some favorite Bookseller quotes

“Hannes does not have horns and he does not carry a pitchfork.”

“The summit was an unprecedented attempt by abe to involve booksellers in its planning and to help demystify some of it’s decisions.”

“I am convinced they are trying quite hard to increase their and our sales.”

“I applaud Abe for putting on the summit and for the many communication channels they have and I appreciate the effort that so many of them put into the conference. I was impressed by all the managers and their enthusiasm.”

“The abe staff are human and very receptive to constructive criticism, but as a business entity have to look out for their own bottom line just like we do.”