This morning I went over to Biblio
to simply browse around. It’d has actually been a while since I browsed to the main index page and I didn’t see a whole lot different. I would really like to see them hop into the Web 2.0 
world, both in website coding and design. Nevertheless, I was happy to see that they have maintained their prominently placed box on the right sidebar that announces Bookseller Sales. First, I like how they pitch it. It doesn’t look like what it is (an ad for an individual seller), but it is seamlessly integrated into the rest of the page. This space on Biblio, is worth a significant amount of money. There are a variety of ways Biblio could use this space to generate a significant amount of revenue, but they’ve chosen to keep it for the sellers, which I appreciate.
It has been a while since I sang the praises of Biblio, but I am committed to the opinion that the company remains the listings service offering the best features to its independent sellers. Many balk at my mention of Biblio as a place to list their inventory, primarily because of poor sales. But when someone looks to me and says “why”, I simply say, “why not”?
Few people who use automatic repricing, repricing scripts, and even those manual repricing hold outs truly understand the effects of their actions on their bottom line. There are a variety of issues surrounding this contentious issue, but today I wanted to bring up one very simple reminder: reprice based on venue, not simply on Amazon.
Many of the booksellers I’ve been chatting with have said they reprice their entire inventory based on Amazon prices. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it does have some pretty significant consequences.
For many titles, there is a price differential between sites. For around 100 books I tested, that differential averaged around 6%. That is to say buyers going to site A would pay 6% more than site B, for the cheapest copy of the title. Six percent is a pretty significant number.
My suggestion is simple: reprice based on venue, especially if you are selling on Alibris, Abebooks, and Biblio (Amazon and eBay tend to have less price differential, especially if you are only selling on these sites).
“Biblio.com would like to thank everyone for the ongoing patience and outpouring of support during this difficult period. It is only with the goodwill of our booksellers that we have been able to achieve our recovery.
Although we had hoped and expected to have Biblio restored earlier, the site is now live again. Our entire staff has worked ceaselessly to complete repairs on the database, and retrieve all of the data.
To enable the site to return as quickly as possible, we have identified the most important functions for Biblio.com Bookseller Members and customers to be able to access. Customers are able to search for, and purchase Biblio.com inventory once again. Later this afternoon, Biblio.com will begin processing uploads received in the last 48 hours to remove inventory delete requests, and we should begin reprocessing those uploads soon for adds and updates. Booksellers should not need to resend any ftp uploads that have been previously sent during our down time.
All inventory, order information, and customer payment information has been restored from our backups, and is available. While Biblio continues with ongoing repairs, some limitations of the system will be likely. Search times may be longer while system resources are being used for the continued restoration. Although booksellers will be able to access all of their listings, and remove sold books, they will not be immediately able to add or edit inventory, and listings will not be browseable. Sellers will not be able to upload images or manage catalogs, and listings will not show-up on Bookfinder or Addall.
At the current rate of recovery, our engineers have given an estimate for full recovery of October 4th. Booksellers’ listings may not be browseable again for a slightly longer period.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of both our booksellers for their patience, and the entire Biblio.com staff, who have worked around the clock since this problem began.
Although I had hoped to recover much sooner, our staff has overcome tremendous difficulty to expedite repair. We have been forced to test our abilities, and the staff of Biblio has demonstrated greater dedication than I could have ever hoped. We have been given the opportunity to learn from this experience. Booksellers and customers should see the benefit of improved performance as a result our system rebuild.
In the next few days, sellers should see Biblio continue to return to normal as all of the bookseller and customer options become available again. Bookseller payments will be sent out on schedule on Monday, October 2nd when Biblio runs first of the month billing.
Kind regards,
Brendan Sherar
CEO, Biblio Inc.”
