Behind the Scenes on "Live Fire"
Fairy Tales, Symbols, and Readers' ExpectationsBooksellers: charge reasonable shipping rates for a change!
For the last 5 years or so, used book sellers online, from amazon to alibris and beyond, have been jacking up their postage rates for used books. This year the fad at abebooks.com (the vast and sprawling association of independent booksellers’ online store) has been to charge in the neighborhood of $4.50 shipping for a single book. That’s an average I’m seeing in charges ranging from the typical “low” of $3.50-ish, shooting past amazon’s commonplace $3.99, to the overreaching highs of $4.90 and even some $5 and up charges.
Let’s be real: if I’m buying a threadbare paperback that is listed for .01 cents to $1.00, you’re really telling me the minimum value of that book is ~$4.00 and then some. This, while I know that the actual media mail postage charge to send a typical paperback is $2.25.
What’s obviously happening here is that booksellers are underpricing (many of) the actual books, and building in a set profit margin on the inflated handling charges. And I’m sorry to tell you, booksellers, but I resent that. It doesn’t cost you near $5.00 to send me a paperback you’ve priced at .01 cent, and which I could reasonably find in a used book store in the 50-cent bin. The result of your tactic is three-fold:
First, I skip your wares, cursing your greed for building in an inflated minimum price per book – let’s be real, that old paperback really isn’t worth $3.00 to me, much less 4 or 5.
Second, I curse again because I have extensive research needs and live in a remote area, so I have little choice but to acquire most of my books through online, mailed sources. I feel like I’m a captive audience, and you are attempting to take advantage of me. This is not building customer good will, but it does succeed in actively creating ill will.
Third, I shop instead with someone charging a minimal handling fee: $2.75 is a delight to find, being just a reasonable envelope and quick packaging charge over the actual postage. $3.00-$3.50 is great, it still beats the (also inflated) minimum at amazon. And the hands-down winner is Free Shipping, which is why Better World Books has moved to the top of my preferred seller list, and now gets the lion’s share of my book orders that I used to place with the abebooks network. (When I’m waffling on the price point I may still buy there, because they have the added plus of being a socially responsible business. Check ‘em out. They’re a good model for how to do the used book business.)
The end result of this picayune price gouging is not only that you have lost my business on one book: it is that you have lost my business on the approximately 300 books I buy a year. Yes, a year. That varies of course: some years it’s 200, others it’s closer to 500, and occasionally it’s under 100 due to budget constraints. But I am a writer and a bibliophile, I own my own library (which numbers in the thousands of volumes) and yes: I’m not doing business with you. If I’m going to pay an inflated book price, I’ll buy new from amazon and at least get a shiny pristine book in return for free shipping on a combined order: so pffft to your inflated charges. You have just lost a customer.
The moral of this story is that if you’re selling used, and must make a certain minimum profit per item, do this arcane trick and price the book accordingly. People don’t mind paying real money for an item of real value. But they do mind being gouged on the shipping and handling charges, and it will cost you in the long run.
Or, to emphasize the positive: happy customers are repeat customers, and that’s where profit you can count on from year to year really comes from.
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alibris used books | Digg hot tags Says:
December 27th, 2008 at 3:04 am e
[…] Vote Booksellers: Charge reasonable postage rates for a change! […]
Kate Douglas Says:
December 28th, 2008 at 8:52 am e
It’s about time someone posted an article about this! I rarely buy used, but the shipping prices for new books coupled with decreased prices for fuel are sending me back to the hour long drive to town to buy my books. I make a list and hit the bookstore, where, even though I’m paying full price and not the “discount” offered online (plus shipping) I’m still paying less for my purchases. I love the convenience online shopping offers, but I resent paying such inflated shipping charges.
Kathi Says:
December 28th, 2008 at 5:45 pm e
I am also paying attention to shipping rates — going as far as to compare used bookstores on-line via Abebooks or Amazon partners to see if any of them were offering two separate books I wanted, and would allow a lower combined shipping rate offer. (I did finally find this combo.)
For specialty books, I am now looking at local specialty stores first. You can’t have the experts when you really need them, if you don’t give them steady support. Even if “steady” in their area is only every 3-4 months. I have paid more for new books, but actually been able to not buy others, when discussion with experts showed I didn’t really need them.
It still pays to consult experts. And I am loyal to product with good service.
(I copied this blog over here from my old one, and I hate to lose these good comments that were made on it, so am copying those here too. That’s why my name shows up on all these comments.)
Right on!
I think there can be reasons to charge a fair amount for shipping and handling for a book. I usually buy nice hardcovers, and have bought quite a few on abebooks.com. I’ll tell ya, there is NOTHING that makes me more disgusted than a bookseller who ships an expensive hardcover book in a bubble-wrap envelope or a shoddy cardboard wrap instead of a box. I’ve been keeping track of what happens – and over one-third of those books get damaged in shipment! I looked for a signed copy of What-the-Dickens by Gregory Maguire, and could find only one on AbeBooks. Only one! And plenty costly it was, too, considering it was still in the stores at the time. It arrived in a bubble-wrap, DAMAGED! I couldn’t believe it. The seller got it back, much good may it do her. I once ordered a limited edition of Ray Bradbury’s Cat’s Pajamas. Even more expensive – $200!!! Bubble-wrap – DAMAGED! Unbelievable once again. I could go on, but won’t you’ll be glad to know. Anyway – I am MORE than happy to pay for the bookseller to buy the darn box and take fifteen minutes to pack it nicely so it arrives in the same condition it was when it left their place. And that really does take a little time, and I think it’s pefectly justifiable to charge even $5 or $6 for shipping an expensive hardcover well-packed. So that’s the caveat. But where booksellers go wrong is, as you said, charging that same amount to throw a $0.50 book into a bubble-wrap envelope, print the label out, and slap the thing shut – it probably takes about 5 minutes total or less, if they are set up to do it as a side business or better. I could see cost of material & postage, plus $1 for that kind of packaging – not the $4 and recently even $6.50 for packaging & shipping I’ve seen. Your observations about it boosting the effective price of a $1 book are exactly right. It must be people who never get into a big city who pay that kind of money for a $1 book – it’s hard to understand how bookseller ever figure to sell those books with those kinds of shipping charges!