posted on June 17, 2001 03:02:53 PM new
Have any of you booksellers checked out http://www.tomfolio.com
yet? Anyone selling there? (For those who haven't, It is a bookseller's co-op.) I LOVE the co-op idea and I know there has been a lot of talk about it here at AW. I was just wondering if anyone has any further info to share about tomfolio as I am considering becoming a member there but really want more details about the site and membership before taking the plunge.
I have emailed them with my own questions about the site and will post more as I find out more info, but any firsthand experiences of sellers/members there would be wonderful. Thanks in advance!
posted on June 17, 2001 05:18:54 PM new
Hi CAgrrl - Looks like another site where sellers pay a monthly fee to list. I am keeping an open mind about all these options...but what I want to see is more visibility than on this board. If I want to pay $40 a month I can pay that for a merchant account on Amazon and have my books listed on the premier bookselling site in terms of name recognition. As it stands, I list for free and deal with the hassle of re-listing after 30 days. Right now my sales are down so I'm not ready to pay the monthly fee.
posted on June 17, 2001 05:53:51 PM new
CAgrrl, are you selling only books? or do you sell other items too?
If you are specializing in books, many fulltime booksellers have made positive remarks about TomFolio on the Amazon discussion boards as an additional site they are going to be using.
I haven't signed up yet, and didn't join the cooperative prior to June 1st opening due to the big financial commitment. I'm not sure yet if I want to sell there if I'm not a co-op member. I think so, but for personal reasons I think it will probably happen at the end of the year or next year rather than right now.
CAgrrl, I'd love to hear about your experiences and the information you get from them about signing up.
Keziak, Hi! haven't talked to you in a while. I also think it is worth the $40 monthly fee to sell as a ProMerchant on Amazon. Although I keep hearing about TomFolio from the Amazon sellers so that is making me take notice.
posted on June 17, 2001 08:11:56 PM new
enchanted- I sell other items too. However, I am constantly re-evaluating my product mix.
I actually had cut waaaay back on my book inventory because so many books are not ebay-able. And although I like Amazon's marketplace OK, I just am really not crazy about sites that don't let you write your own description and link to your own photos. I could definitely see myself buying more books (like I used to) if I had a more viable place to list them. Being able to link to your own photos like you do in an ebay auction is a real plus, since I sell mainly illustrated books and the illustrations are important to highlight in the listing if I want to grab a buyer's attention.
Keziak- I am not sure about this but my impression was that if the site has surplus funds, they would be refunded to the members. $35 seems like a reasonable amount per month to me anyway. My ebay fees are at least $35 per WEEK. And I like the idea of being a co-op member. I don't like being at Ebay's mercy at all. But I hear you, it is a pretty big commitment to make, so I will think it over carefully.
edited to add, I will check out the amazon forum. thanks for pointing me in that direction! also, thanks for your comments, I appreciate it.
[ edited by CAgrrl on Jun 17, 2001 08:13 PM ]
posted on June 17, 2001 08:20:32 PM new
perhaps I got prematurely excited. I just found the by-laws and read:
1.Membership in the Cooperative shall be open and limited to any used-book-dealer company that owns and maintains a retail business and physical inventory from which it makes retail sales of used books, used ephemera and used periodicals to the public, and from which it makes such retail sales through but not limited to the Cooperative (hereafter Member Companies).
I don't have a retail store, so that effectively excludes me from the co-op if I read this correctly, right? or not? what do you think?
posted on June 17, 2001 09:14:46 PM new
CAgrrl- I looked at Tomfolio's bylaws when working on the ones for our vintage co-op. To sell books retail means you sell them to the public as opposed to being a wholesaler. You can be an online business.You are not limited to owning a brick and mortar shop.
posted on June 17, 2001 09:29:54 PM new
I agree with Labelle that you would be considered a retail seller of books online, as long as you are selling on another site besides TomFolio. Many of the Amazon sellers do not have a bricks and mortar shop ( I don't yet either) and just sell online.
I'm going to have to read the bylaws of TomFolio in the next few days and I'll post back to this thread after I do that.
Remember it's a fairly new site that opened this year and although $35 a month in fees isn't much I really don't have a sense for how many books you could sell in a month per thousand listed. Amazon is very busy with lots of traffic and it could take a new site quite a well to build up to even a portion of the traffic Amazon gets.
CAgrrl, consider doing Z-shop ads for the books on Amazon, you can upload your own photo for free to the Amazon computer system and write as long of a description as you like for the ad. Also, the final sale commission is less in Z-shops than in Marketplace. It takes a little bit longer to sell than in Marketplace but you're not limited to books with ISBN's and a short description.
I've even listed vintage literary magazines on Amazon and am thinking about putting my vintage Life Magazines on there too.
posted on June 18, 2001 06:21:40 PM new
I did hear back from support at Tomfolio. They will be spending money to advertise the site, and in addition they also have a volunteer committee set up to promote the site.
I also emailed one of TomFolio's members, who I have bought books from in the past. She told me that the ordering system on TomFolio seems to facilitate multiple purchases from the same customer, which sounds like a plus to me.
Enchanted- those are some interesting points to consider. However, I was under the impression that z-shops were pretty dead. If I were going to make an effort to promote another site, I want it to be one that I have a real interest in. I worked my a$$ off promoting Yahoo auctions when I kept the bulk of my business there. I brought many people to the site who would NEVER have shopped there otherwise. Then things fell apart there when Yahoo drastically changed the fee structure without warning. It is their site and I honestly don't fault them for trying to make a profit, although I think that they should have taken their sellers' opinions into consideration before making such drastic changes. All that is niether here nor there- the point I'm trying to make is, I don't want to put all my blood, sweat and tears into making a space for myself on a new site, only to be at the mercy of another publicly traded corporation where the stockholders matter more than I do. For that, I could just stay at Ebay, you know?
Cathy- Thanks for the clarification! That is really helpful. I was very very happy to read your post!
posted on June 18, 2001 07:20:27 PM new
I agree with your points about working to promote a site that you believe in and feel will be there for YOU in the long run, I think that is why TomFolio started in the first place. It was set up by booksellers for booksellers who were concerned that they have a site that wouldn't be sold overnight to a bigger site, surprising everyone who'd worked so hard to build traffic to the site.
About Z-shops, it sure is not dead for books. Like everything else, pricing matters and will affect the number of books you sell. I am pleasantly surprised at the long term sell through rate for reasonably priced books. Lots of booksellers there only list in Z-shops (I list in both Marketplace and Z-shops). I haven't had success with other items in Z-shops but for books I think it is one of the places I want to be selling.
I have noticed some tendency for a few sellers to say, oh it's dead there perhaps because they don't want the competition. If it's dead, how are they managing to stay there as full time sellers year after year? I take some of the complaints with a grain of salt.
posted on June 19, 2001 11:13:41 PM new
enchanted- I am happy to hear that you are doing well with your sales there. That's fantastic! Actually now that I think about it, the "z-shops are dead" complaints were mostly coming from FORMER amazon sellers who had defected to yahoo and/or ebay. But they weren't strictly booksellers either, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.
posted on June 21, 2001 07:02:31 AM new
I am also looking for a place to list books and older magazines which is not as limited as half.com or Amazon. Since I would probably hover aorund 1000 listings at a time, I did not want anything as expensive as TomFolio. The $500 is besides the monthly fee. And I do want to be able to correspond with my customers...ABC has a reasonable listing, but I need a place to store my pictures. And if I pay #20-30 a month for a web site, TomFolio would be the better bet. Does anyone know where I can get web site free?
If it's dead, how are they managing to stay there as full time sellers year after year? I take some of the complaints with a grain of salt.