It is essential that you do not re-use your book IDs in your inventory system. When you delete or sell a book, it is necessary to "retire" the associated ID number and use only new numbers for your new books. Unique book IDs ensure book buyers receive accurate match reports, increasing customer satisfaction. If you have more than one copy of a single book, duplicates are only listed if you use unique book IDs. This prevents books from going "missing" in your online inventory.
If you have more than one copy of a single book and do not want to create multiple listings for the title, it is necessary to use a new book ID number for each listing. You can list the book more than once with a unique book ID for each copy. If you prefer not to list the book more than once, you can list the book once and after you sell one copy, you can restore the recently deleted book to the AbeBooks database.
AbeBooks cannot guarantee the accuracy of a listing if a book number is re-used. A re-used book ID is any ID number that was previously assigned to a different book. Re-using book ID numbers may result in the book not appearing or in incorrect data, including stock photographs and bibliographic details, being displayed.