posted on January 22, 2001 11:05:46 AM new
Hello, abacaxi.
Have you noticed that Half.com is requesting that current sellers tell them what OTHER types of mdse they'd like to sell through Half?
Okay.
However, what really confuZes me is this: WHY are they considering *new* catagories, when the existing ones are not FULLY developed?
Uhm, for instance, now that Half is over a year old, is it NOT very werrie ~peculiar~ that it is the one bookselling site which does not list the PUBLISHER?
I've been w-a-i-t-i-n-g for them to include PUBLISHER, and now I can only conclude that they have NO intentions of including that in the book description, as now they are soliciting OTHER CATEGORIES OF MERCHANDISE.
Not only do they NOT have the name of the publisher, which is VERY important to describe the *quality* or, l-a-c-k thereof -- but they don't even specify if a book is O-U-T O-F P-R-I-N-T
Do they want everybody to research the book titles over at Amazon.notcom and big ol' Barnes & Noble???
Abacaxi, since you know sooooooooooo very much about the book world and bookselling, would you kindly enlighten dummmie here and tell me WHY THERE STILL IS NO PUBLISHER STATED, and why, each time that I might list an old hard-2-find OUT-OF-PRINT book that they have a "price confirmation" page, because the price is higher than half of the the original cover price.
ARE THEY NUTS?????????
An *scarce* out-of-print scholarly decades book is considerably more valuable than its original cover price.
This is alllllllll soooooooooo ILLOGICAL to me, as that stooooooooopid miserable price-confirmation page often takes MINUTES, (yes!) to download.
abacaxi, can you pleeeeeeeez tell me, WHY, even now at this LATE date, that there still is NO mention anywhere whatsoever of the PUBLISHER?
posted on January 22, 2001 11:28:44 AM new
"Have you noticed that Half.com is requesting that current sellers tell them what OTHER types of mdse they'd like to sell through Half?"
Yes ... I forsee a brilliant future in selling leftover groceries based on the UPC code, used panties based on the manufacturer's garment industry code, etc. And in the meantime, I have a LOT of books that have ISBN numbers that can't be listed on half.com because of their crappy database!
"Uhm, for instance, now that Half is over a year old, is it NOT very werrie ~peculiar~ that it is the one bookselling site which does not list the PUBLISHER?"
If you know how to read the ISBN, you know who the publisher is ... ASSUMING that the seller actually used the right ISBN and is not pawning off a book with no ISBN as one with the ISBN, and ASSUMING that the ISBN is the correct one. Many people will list a book with NO ID|SBN number under the number they find, regardless of publisher, edition or binding. I have done it, BUT the description stated the edition!
"me WHY THERE STILL IS NO PUBLISHER STATED, and why, each time that I might list an old hard-2-find OUT-OF-PRINT book that they have a "price confirmation" page, because the price is higher than half of the the original cover price."
Because that's the way the software is configured! Just hit "Yes, I know it's not gonna be cheap" and keep going. If you think the publisher is important (and it IS), use the description to give the publisher name and OOP.
A Very Fine copy of a thirty year old Oxford University Press paperback which is not currently in print, DOES HAVE A MARKET - among scholars and especially graduate students, who will be ECSTATIC that the book is even available, much less in Very Fine condition.
That miserable~MISERABLE~misserable terrible, S-T-0-0-P-I-D "price confirmation" page has on occasion take 5 full MINUTES+++ to download!!!!!!!!
It took me OVER AN HOUR to list three ===> 1,2,3 books this morning.
abacaxi --- HOW MANY MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC KNOW HOW TO IDENTIFY THE PUBLISHER VIA THE ISBN NUMBER?
posted on January 22, 2001 12:31:08 PM new
You mean everyone doesn't know that Oxford is 0-19-? I'm shocked. What is this coun try's educational system coming to?
posted on January 22, 2001 12:37:17 PM new
98% of all auctions I place ANYWHERE, under ANY userid get sabotaged --- I refuse to list ANYTHING for auction, online, ANYWHERE -- not until the FBI traces down and identifies the ACTUAL ORIGIN of all these malicious criminal activities, and takes viable action to eliminate same.
It's not worth my time & energy to list any auctions, currently. Besides, I never know which day I will be healthy enuff to actual wrap & pack items, much less go to the post office -- with 1/2.com I can utilize the Vacation feature whenever I need to, (or simply feel like it.)
There is a MARKET for a whole number of scholarly books -- but, that does NOT mean that they are *popular* -- it means that they are SELLABLE for the info they contain, for the expertise of the author, and because some university presses ONLY publish quality material, often in VERY well made books.
It really only dawned on me this last week that 1/2.com NEVER had ANY intention of identifying publishers, worse yet - they obviously have NO idea why such is important qualifying information about any given title, and "worstest" of all, abacaxi..........the ongoing discrepencies & inaccuracies in the database and their non-correction, even after multiple emails re: same makes me wonder:
JUST WHOoooooooo IS ADVISING 1/2.com??
Cuz it frankly looks like a COMPETITOR is advising them, or elsewise they don't even know enuff about books to know that they don't know about books and need someone with some experience to guide them.
Don'tcha just luv how they imput their (S-T-O-O-P-I-D) database with prices from Michigan MICROFISCHE outfit?
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course, the general public knows NOTHING about that -- but HALF.com damned better well know something about USED/Out of Print books.
So ya got sellers with no bookselling experience coming up with DEBRIS at garagesales, finding it priced at $89.45 at Half.com, and the sellers list it for $45.
LOLOLOLOL !!!!!!!!!!!
Titles that EVERY used bookstore in America has DOZENS of copies of, marked under $2, as the book is scarcely more useful than paper pulp.
But go to Half.com, and find 41 copies priced for over twenty-five bucks.
What a hoooooooooT!
They are running the third most popular online shopping destination, and they obviously do NOT care about books.
posted on January 22, 2001 12:49:31 PM new
booksbooksbooks: LOL!
If you were majoring in business, and had NEVER seen the book (as it doesn't really exist, anyway,) would you be interested in the title, Business Ethics & Why They Matter?
Maybe.
But tell me, would you purchase the copy published by the Rudolf Steiner press, the University of Chicago Press or the Theosophical's Quest Publishing outfit?????????
Most likely you'd go with U Chicago.
But if you were an educator who collected Steiner's works, then you'd want to add that one to your library.
Oh hell --- just surf over to bn.com and find out the accurate info from Barnes & Noble - who knows, they might even have a reprint copy in their bargain bin for a buck.
And isn't it just the height of kewl that they have in their database EVERY edition of EVERY textbook ever published -- but have neglected to point out that when a book is in the 25th edition having been reprinted a couple dozen times, that the early editions frequently are often WORTHLESS, in the sense that there is NO *real* market for them, as only stray serious readers will purchase same; all college students will need the current edition, or at least a very later one.
Of course, this issue is kinda MOOT, as the college textbook industry intends to all course materials available ONLINE -- this is where billions of R&D are currently deployed, and the first generation thereof will be ready in a couple years.
posted on January 22, 2001 01:12:35 PM new
"You can abbreviate the publisher to
"Oxford U" and still have room for OOP and the buyers will know what it is."
Nah ... VeRO will probably choke on the word "Oxford" and think you're trying to sell copyrighted shoes
posted on January 22, 2001 02:11:57 PM new
jake -
SPAmazon now REQUIRES its sellers to accept their "quick-buy" payment method, whether they want to or not. If you check the terms of that 'feature", SPAmazon gets FREE USE OF THE FLOAT and they charge a FEE for its use.
I would rather get checks in the mail.
posted on January 22, 2001 03:14:06 PM new
If memory serves (I signed up for their super-secret beta testing, but wasn't selected), the founders of Half.com started with a marketing concept. Selecting books as their product line (books) was an afterthought.
RB: Thanks for showin' up! What a remarkable image!!!!!!
I'm sure that abacaxi will disabuse me of my idealistic imagery, but really, really, really: Can you ever, in even your wildest nightmares imagine Cambridge or Oxford University Press reps acting like eBaysian VEROs?
posted on January 22, 2001 03:53:47 PM new
ok, I'm In. Since I can't download to AW with the Auction Manager, which I am just trying out and getting very frustrated with I will put in my 2C on the 1/2 deal. My wife has ordered about 100 books total on Half. She is a 7th grade teacher and the school reimburses her for the educational supplies. The school saves $$ by letting her purchase her school texts there and also, she has received classroom quality (not mint by any means) but ok for the reading class she's instructing....Half not good for sellers, well, can be great for schools and teachers, expecially with the current budget for the school......
Not Nannys Attic on e-bay
posted on January 22, 2001 03:55:41 PM new
jake: a year and a half ago when everyone complained that none of their books were selling at amazon.com auctions, 97% of my listings sold the FIRST list.
These past few months when I read posts here that sales are slow at Half.com, I do not know what people can possibly be speaking of, for you see, I have actually had to turn off my account on MANY occasions either because I am literally sick of trips to the USPS, or more often, you see -- I either cannot justify putting more money into po$tage, money which I won't see again for WEEKS, or because I simply cannot afford to put one more lousy cent into postage.
Obviously postage monies are reimbursed by Half -- after they have made substantial interest on the float.
Well, I can only afford to help pay eBay shareholders just so much, ya know??????????
I cannot afford to let them have HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS, week after week after week of *my* money, and I dare say that plenty of others have noted that this NON-interest bearing financial expenditure can be very problematic for the shoestring business.
I'd LOVE to see how often how many people are "going on vacation" - for the simple reason that their budget precludes shipping out several more dozen books with no reimbursement for WEEKS.
Face it, the entire field of ecommerce is slanted for BigBiz and their horrid miserable Vulture Capitalists.
The future of the Internet, however, lies in the hands of INDIVIDUALS.
(I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-S)
Amazon.com will not survive much longer, thank gawd, and even if it did - and even if I received TRIPLE payments, I would NOT list at Amazon.com even were ol' Jeffie to hold a gun to my head.
I look forward to the demise of that abomination, a miserable stinking vulture capitalist financed enterprise that undercut ALL book prices of offline shops, led to the demise of thousands of independent booksellers --- and ALL THE TIME, ol' Jeffie not once made a profit.
Then ol' Jeffie declared to eBay, which had been INVITED up to Seattle to discuss a co-branding deal, that he would crush eBay.
That means US, i.e., U & me.
I am very hostile about the huge amount of money I lost because of listing at amazon.com where I ended up with DOZENS of sabotaged auctions, 100s of FAKE email inquiries about my auctions.
That crap shoot was FINANCED by Vulture Capitalists, and IMO it will be a *blessing* to our entire planet when amazon.notcom FOLDS, which I predict to occur soooooooner, rather than later.
The =only= way that miserable eBiz could survive is if eBay bails out Bezos.
You know, the uncrushable eBay.
I consider Jeff Bezos to be a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y megalomanical with definitive delusions of grandeur.
I wonder how he sleeps at night; I wonder how a person sustains any self esteem from putting other businesses out of business, while making NO profit.
Amazon.notcom, and EVERYTHING it represents is LOATHSOME.
posted on January 22, 2001 07:52:00 PM new
I am confused by a lot of stuff in this thread. Guess it's past my bedtime. "Price confirmation page"? I can't remember seeing that. ??
I don't know why half.com would indicate in-print status. This is a rapidly changing situation as I know because I am a book-buying librarian and many thinks go OP at a shockingly fast pace. So it would be impossible to keep up. Half.com can't even get the titles right much of the time.
I actually had a book sell today that the buyer chose Priority...and the reimbursement is so weird. It's $4.30. Where did they come up with that? I am going to make sure my box comes in under 2 lbs.
posted on January 22, 2001 08:00:36 PM new
keziak: the price-confirmation page occurs if you list a book at over half of whatever the original cover price is, NO MATTER WHAT THE ACTUAL VALUE of the book is.
EVERY single time, one must wait for that miserable page to download, and be informed:
"By listing this item at over half price, it may not be prominently featuredon the site and could take longer to sell."
It would be SIMPLE to indicate that any specific edition of any specific book is currently OUT OF PRINT.
posted on January 23, 2001 03:00:39 AM new
I see. Maybe our computer has a different connection because it always pops up so fast I haven't noticed it. I have frequently listed books at well over the half or cover price, like a couple of highly-collectible genre novels.
As for OP status, it seems to be simple enough for Amazon to manage, but I suspect they are a better-run company at least in this respect, or they download records from Books in Print in some way.
Half.com isn't up to the job. I frequently notice that they list books that link a pre-pub title to the ISBN, then they do not go back and correct the title to what is actually ON THE PUBLISHED book. In this case I am reluctant to list, because how on earth would the customer know the pre-pub title? How many search by ISBN? I do, because I'm a librarian, but I have no idea what civilians do.
posted on January 23, 2001 08:32:32 AM new
keziak: thanks for sharing your expertise - I have myself been wondering about some of those STRANGE titles I occasionally run across, and wondering where they were retrieved from.
Do you, then, believe that it is possible that Half.com is NOT using Bowker's Books in Print as the BASIS for their database?
posted on January 23, 2001 08:48:37 AM new
abacaxi: I won't purchase anything from Amazon.notcom, and I am not up to date on their treatment of small sellers - I only am aware of how many coupon codes are financing plenty of their ledger sales.
You said, "SPAmazon now REQUIRES its sellers to accepttheir "quick-buy" payment method, whetherthey want to or not. If you check the termsof that 'feature", SPAmazon gets FREEUSE OF THE FLOAT and they chargea FEE for its use."
uhmmmmmmmm.....
abacaxi......
I have PLENTY of things to say about Half.com retaining our sales & postage monies for weeks and weeks.
Plenty, but I'll spare you.
Because at least eBay, the uncrushable eBay is a financially SOLVENT enterprise.
However, as I was thinking over your words last night, I almost got physically SICK.
Do you mean to tell me that LIDDLE WIDDLE INDEPENDENT SMALL ENTREPENEURS are letting Amazon.NOTcom hang on to their money?
????????????????????????
I would not allow Jeff Bezos to have one lousy nickel of mine, but that is a matter of principle, illustrating that I am simply an oldeeeeee Fuddee Duddee.
Are you telling me that SELLERS, i.e., real live human beings whom I've interacted with online for years are TRUSTING amazon.NOTcom with holding onto their PAYMENT MONEY??
abacaxi, I actually have had to take out personal LOANS in order to pay postage on my sales at Half -- as messageboards made me presume that sales were stagnant there, which I did not find to be the case, and consequently had done NO cash-flow analysis of operating under a They-Earn-Interest-On-My-Money, and I cannot afford to put another cent into postage until I receive my check.
But it NEVER never never enters my mind that I won't get that check.
eBay/Half.com is SOLVENT
What will happen to small sellers when amazon inevitably goes belly up, which I truly do believe is inevitable.
I am NOT happy about my piddly monies financing the huge remainder corporations of this world to have a guzzied up site to sell their billions of books on -- but never in my wildest nightmares do I believe that my piddly monies are unsafe in their hands.
posted on January 23, 2001 09:00:13 AM new
"What will happen to small sellers when amazon inevitably goes belly up, which I truly do believe is inevitable."
The same thing that happens to anyone with money in ExchangePath, or any other business. You go to the end of the line in bankruptcy court as an "unsecured creditor".
I bailed on SPAmazon when they changed the privacy policy, and would never consider working with a site that wanted to hang onto the funds AND charge me a fee to get the funds out.
I'm not exacly pleased with half.com's sales but they ARE reliable about the checks. I knew I'd be fronting the postage and planned for it. I also do not list any heavy books.
nannysattic: you mentioned near the end of your post, "she has received classroom quality (not mintby any means) but ok for the reading class she'sinstructing....Half not good for sellers, well,can be great for schools and teachers, expeciallywith the current budget for the school......"
~ ~ ~
I've had several school teachers explain how they cannot make school purchases at a whole number of CHEAP vendors, because of the way the paperwork is set up, so I understand how pleased your wife is to outfit her class on Half.com
Indeed, there are items listed at Half.com which simply are not typically available anywhere else, as I have noticed MANY titles which used booksellers simply do not stock on their shelves, and indeed, I found a copy of a book I'd been looking for for FORTY YEARS!!! for 99-cents at Half.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL!
When you state, "...Half not good for sellers..." -- no, that is NOT what abacaxi and I mean.
Myself, I am simply in a state of outright SHOCK that eBay is considering expanding Half's categories, when the currently existing database needs HELP.
Perhaps Keziak is correct - that they are not using the ONE major reference on earth about books, (BOOKS IN PRINT).....
That, too, would be a breathtaking SHOCK.
I simply did not realize that Half.com NEVER considered the publisher of the book IMPORTANT.
I actually thought they were simply too swamped to put that CRUCIAL DETAIL in their database -- but the fact that they are now looking to expand their categories proves that NOBODY at Half.com EVER thought that that was important information.
HOW MANY LIBRARIANS AND BOOKSELLERS DO THEY HAVE ACCESS TO????????
abacaxi: hopefully I will not need to memorize those ISBN codes for publishers, as I received word last night:
~ ~ ~
"You raise a great point regarding the missing publisherinformation on our Item Detail pages. I have alreadyforwarded your suggestion to our Product Managementstaff to have them look into adding thepublisher information to our pages."
~ ~ ~
Others may ask why I did not write such a suggestion many many MONTHS ago.
But you see, it NEVER occured to me that the people running Half.com know SO little about books, that they did not believe that the producer of the item was important.
That NEVER occured to me -- that not only do they NOT know, but that they do NOT, **OBVIOUSLY** have any professional booksellers and NO librarians advising them.
NONE.
These are the people I entrust my listings and my *U-earn-INTEREST-the-float* of MY MONEY.
And yeah, they will continue to do so, on the occasions I can afford to have my account turned on with them.
They may not know anything about books, but they do know ALOT about business, and I trust them with my money, even if I harbor grudges that MY MONEY & YOUR MONEY is financing a guzzied up bells and whistles site to market the remaindered books of the HUGE BOOK WAREHOUSES.
Half.com is NOT "bad" for sellers; it is simply PERTERBING to me that they know so little and IMO are VERY UNCONCERNED about same.
posted on January 23, 2001 09:57:32 AM new
Amazon's Marketplace has a feature allowing you to transfer your payments to your bank account any time you want to. You don't have to wait for a check. I think it's much more convenient than Half.com. Regarding solvency, it's true Amazon could go out of business any time, but at the same time I don't feel as if having $20.00 or so in fees owed to me is that much to risk. I've sold a large number of books there that I couldn't sell on Ebay or Half.com (tried both places first.)
I don't care if they spam me.
I don't care if they make money on the float, long's I get ma money in a few days.
I don't think Half.com is even interested in books. Books are just commodities to them, therefore it's not surprising that they would know nothing about their classification, even at the most basic level. Like many companies, they don't even know enough about what they are selling to hire people who DO know. Alas, all too common in business. I am guessing that in the minds of the founders, they originally envisioned a more popular (as opposed to esoteric) marketplace, where it's unlikely that users would be sophisticated enough to care about publisher, etc. As originally envisioned I *believe* it was intended to sell relatively common books and videos, meaning that people would be searching under "John Grisham" or "Sega". It seems like it would be relatively simple to add more sophisticated search fields, and make it a more exciting/useful place for the esoteric book buyer and seller, but to be honest, I don't really think they care about depth in books. I think they care about BREADTH in commodities. So I doubt it will happen despite it making sense to make their book-categories better rather than increase the number of other categories. They want breadth, so little will be "fixed" until they are through expanding, which as we all know with ebay, is never. That probably makes another kind of sense to them, although from an esoteric book buyer/seller perspective, it might seem amazingly foolish.
In any case, the argument is academic with me. I find Half.com to be a good idea, but breathtakingly badly executed as regards feedback, organization, etc.--so much so that I simply took everything off its "shelves" and moved to Amazon. I'm glad some people are having success there in terms of sales. I have a number of books in odd niche areas that sold very little on Half, but are doing quite well at Amazon. As I said, since I don't care about spam, float or losing $20.00 (about the max I leave in the Amazon account) I'm happy there.
Oh...and I just edited this to add that for some odd reason, if I have to have my choice among devils I would pick Jeff Bezo's lunatic ravings at the top of the pile of Amazon than the smooth, inpenetrable monolith of corporate Ebay..."Thank you for your email to Ebay...." etc. etc.
[ edited by brighid868 on Jan 23, 2001 10:02 AM ]
posted on January 23, 2001 09:58:10 AM new
oh, and one other thing. I sent a suggestion about 4 months ago and also got a chipper little reply suggesting they might actually do it, but so far I haven't seen any evidence of it.
My suggestion was: post a list of all the titles people have put on a Wish List. That way book scouts like myself will know what people are looking for and will more quickly put the desired books on the site.
Seems like a win-win to me, but so far I haven't seen it done.
posted on January 23, 2001 10:03:20 AM new
keziak: I understand your idea; however, I believe that it would NOT work, not at this point in the development of the Net.
WHY?
Due to the anonymity of the Web, it would be allllllll toooooooo E-A-S-Y for the competitors of Half.com to establish 1000s of dummie accounts with *fake* wish lists -- which might lead you and thousands of others to invest money in UNSELLABLE merchandise.
posted on January 23, 2001 10:07:21 AM new
brighid868: thank YOU for your contributions to this thread, as truly, the spector of liddle widdle microbusinesses losing huge sums of money when amazon.NOTcom goes KapuT has been oppressing me for many hours now. I am v-e-r-y pleased that you spoke up and banished this gawd AWFUL imagery from my mind.
and the buyers will know what it is.