Bookseller Digest UK

Are you using the Rare Book Room?

Have you been to the AbeBooks.co.uk Rare Book Room recently?

Through this page you can contact us with details of any books you'd like to be featured.  If you're selling a truly fascinating book and you have a good quality photo, feel free to submit the information for our "Favourites From Our Booksellers" section (see example below). This can be done by simply completing the online form and emailing your pictures to pictures@abebooks.com.

If you have any difficulty, our Customer Service Team will be happy to help you.

The website is regularly updated with interesting features and visitors can view features from the past along the left hand side (Biggles, Codex Seraphinianus, Imre, Bonté and more). The Advanced Search Options allow you to use Boolean logic and different sort orders to carefully refine your search according to your needs.

We have a special selection of books just one click away from the Rare Book Room as well as links to the Book Collector Forum, the First Edition Room and Signed Books Room, with interesting information for both buyers and booksellers.

Going on Holiday? Put your books on vacation too...

If you are lucky enough to be going on holiday this year, do not forget that you can put your books on vacation at the same time. This will ensure that your books are taken offline when you are away, leaving you to enjoy your holiday.

We recommend that you set the vacation to start 24 hours before you go on holiday and to end 24 hours before you return so that your books will be removed and then re-instated again on time.

Be advised that any outstanding orders will need to be processed before you update your account to vacation status.

To put your books on vacation simply:

• Sign on to your account on www.abebooks.com
• Select [Your Books]
• Select [Manage Vacations]
• Enter your vacation start and end date
• Save the changes

For further information on using the Vacation tool, please visit our Bookseller Help.

View your AbeBooks Account Details

You can take a look at your AbeBooks sales, charges and revenue through the Members Menu. A history of your account balance is accessible through following the steps below:

1) Sign on to AbeBooks.com
2) Select [Your Personal Details]
3) Select [Account Details by Statement]

To view your account details for the month of May, you need to select June from the drop-down menu and then click [View]. By doing so, you will be shown your account balance leading up to the beginning of June.

To view a more detailed description of your sales during a given time, you should select [Sales Details for Statement Period] or if you wish to see a weekly summary of your revenue and charges, you can click on [Weekly Summaries for Statement Period]. Each sales sheet is available in printable format and downloadable as a text file.

For further information on viewing your account details, visit our Bookseller Help.

Managing Extra Shipping Charges

When you sell an item and are unable to cover the postage costs with your standard delivery fee, you can ask the buyer to pay the additional cost by requesting extra charges. To increase the likelihood of the buyer accepting these extra charges, we strongly recommend adding a comment explaining the reason for submitting the request. 

Important things to remember when managing extra shipping charges:

• If a buyer refuses the extra charge, the order will return to you. You can still choose to either accept the order at the original price or reject the order. 
• If you cannot send the item at the original price and extra shipping charges are refused, choose the option "Item Rejected" to avoid negatively affecting your bookseller rating.
• Do not let orders expire. You have 4 days to process an order after a buyer has accepted the extra charges. If a buyer refuses, you still need to cancel the order within 4 days to confirm the cancellation to the buyer and to avoid the influence an expired order would have on your bookseller rating.

Protecting Books with Adequate Packaging

Ensuring your books arrive safely is a very important part of online bookselling and protecting your books with sufficient packaging can help substantially. Poor packaging can reflect negatively on you as an individual bookseller and on the AbeBooks website, and could deter customers from returning to buy from your book collection.

Books that do not arrive in the condition described can also be refunded and do not leave a positive impression on the buyer. Refunds for items that do not arrive as described on the website have an impact on your bookseller rating visible next to your listings.

Here are some ideas to consider...

• Use a thick material to protect the cover and support the book. Consider further protection inside the parcel to decrease movement and provide padding for the entire book.
• Make sure the corners and binding of the book are adequately protected
• Buy packaging in bulk to reduce costs
• Request extra shipping charges to package more fragile books adequately or build the cost of the extra packaging into the book price.
• Take advantage of AbeBooks free promotional material (packing tape, envelopes, etc.)

The Royal Mail website has more advice on how to package books and other paper ephemera, along with tips on how to send an item securely. 

Optimise your Storefront Web Address

To help with search engine indexing, your Bookseller Storefront has several website addresses (URLs). You can see these addresses by accessing your Members Menu and clicking on Your Storefront.

One of these two styles of addresses has been designed to make it easy to remember and to provide to your customers:

www.abebooks.co.uk/bookseller/USERID

To locate your User ID, sign on to access your Members Menu and select Your Personal Information. When you click on Update your account information, your User ID should appear at the top of the page.

At your request, our Customer Service Team will be happy to change your User ID to suit your needs. To submit your request, please use the Online Contact Form to let us know what you would like the User ID to be changed to.

Important: The User ID should not be over 20 characters long (or 15 characters long if you are using HomeBase 2.3)

New Reviews and Recommendations on Book Detail Pages

On AbeBooks.com, you can have a sneak-peek at what we hope to offer soon on our "Book Detail" pages for books with provided ISBNs.

The following information, supplied by a reliable third party source, will be added to the bibliographic information of a book:

• A synopsis
• Customer Reviews
• Recommendations from other buyers of this book
• Other reading suggestions

Click here to see how these pages have been enhanced.

Furthermore, the structure of these pages has been updated to meet the criteria of the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) Thanks to this redesign, the pages will appear higher in the search results gaining more online visibility for the books on the site and helping you to sell more books!

Bookseller Storefronts: Update your catalogues and categories

As you may have already noticed, the new Bookseller Storefronts feature a Browse Categories box which allows buyers to browse through your books exclusively. These categories are attributed to your books automatically through utilising the book information available (for example, keywords). You can also assign your books to the AbeBooks categories manually or update those that seem to have been mis-matched.

In addition, the new Storefronts give more visibility to your catalogues and allow you to feature two of them in greater detail. If you do not already have catalogues but wish to take advantage of this opportunity to promote your specialities, now is the time to start!

To read about the various ways to manage your catalogues and categories, please see our Help pages and then choose the inventory management option which is relevant to you.

Going away for a long weekend? Set your account to vacation...

If you are planning to go away for three days or more to take advantage of the May bank holidays, remember to put your AbeBooks bookseller account on vacation!

Making use of the vacation tool on the AbeBooks site allows you to take your books offline at your discretion in order to prevent receiving sales that you can't process.

You can manage your vacations through your online account by following the simple instructions detailed on our Seller Help page. If you decide to go away for longer than a few weeks, please bear in mind that the minimum monthly subscription fee will still be charged for having 0 - 500 books online.

If you have any questions or require any extra help managing your vacations on AbeBooks, please don't hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team.

New Bookseller Storefronts are launched!

If you haven't noticed already, AbeBooks is pleased to announce the launch of the new AbeBooks Bookseller Storefronts.

All booksellers have been assigned a default Bookseller Storefront. All AbeBooks links to your previously assigned websites and Storefronts will now redirect to these newly designed pages. On the new Storefronts, each seller has the ability to customise their own page as they see fit. Available features include:

* The ability to upload your own image. (Bookshop picture or logo)
* The ability to uniquely describe your shop and your specialities.
* The ability to display all of your catalogues to buyers and/or to feature two catalogues of your choice at any time.
* A Search function that will allow buyers to search your inventory exclusively.
* A Browse function that will allow buyers to browse your inventory exclusively.
* The addition of an ‘Ask the Bookseller a Question’ link, allowing buyers to contact you directly through the AbeBooks system.
* The ability to choose from three different colour schemes.

Click on the option Your Storefront on the Members Menu to view and personalise your Storefront.

In addition, each new Storefront will be accessed through a user-friendly URL that can be used in your marketing initiatives. This is your new URL and website:

www.abebooks.co.uk/bookseller/USERID

(Note: ‘USERID’ can be written in either upper or lower case characters)

These pages will also be Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) friendly, meaning that your Storefront and your inventory will be indexed by and searchable through all of the major search engines, resulting in increased traffic and improved sales.

Please note that the previous web addresses (URLs), and associated homepages, are being retired. Anyone currently using this URL format may continue to do so but they will be automatically redirected to the new Storefronts, at the new URL.

As well as displaying your Catalogues, you will also have the ability to display selected AbeBooks Browse Categories, enabling buyers to browse your inventory based on Categories they are familiar with through the AbeBooks Browse function. If you have not already done so, now would be a good time to both Catalogue and Categorise your inventory in preparation for your new Storefront. It could also be a good idea to match your Catalogues to AbeBooks Browse Categories.

• * Bookseller Catalogues vs. AbeBooks Categories

We’re positive that buyers will appreciate these new Bookseller Storefronts. They will be able to find your Storefront easily and they will be presented with bookshop information in a consistent format. Most importantly, the new Bookseller Storefronts will help to make your inventory easier to find through search engines, driving buyers to the site and improving sales.

If you have any questions or concerns about the new AbeBooks Storefronts, or if you need any help with Catalogues or Categories, please don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team.