AOB Forum - Alibris Gold Worth It?

Quantumchaos Ex Member I love YaBB 1G - YaBB 2! Gender:	Alibris Gold Worth It? Oct 10^th, 2009 at 1:06pm Is the $35 monthly fee (4000-10,000 items) for Alibris Gold worth it I am assuming the sales increase through Alibris's business partners increase sales quite a bit, but I wanted some opinions first Thanks
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sofaslugsbooks

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #1 - Oct 10^th, 2009 at 3:24pm

I have just over 4500 listings on Alibris and find that it is worth it to be in the gold program. Sales have been spottier there than what they were just a year ago but even in a very weak month you can expect to come out ahead...unlike Abebooks where you are much more likely to just break even with that size inventory.

So, yes, I think going gold is worth it.

Good luck!

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Stacks_o_Books

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #2 - Oct 10^th, 2009 at 11:28pm

If you're comparing Alibris' Basic program to the Gold program - if you have over 1,000 listings, you don't have a choice. The Basic program is limited to sellers with 1,000 listings or less.

Keep in mind that you don't have to list ALL your inventory on Alibris. By not listing your lower-priced books, you may find you can drop to the $30 tier and be more profitable. Since you can't specify which books you'll be willing to ship Internationally or Priority Mail on Alibris, and partner sites take a 20% commission with some minimums, you run the risk of taking a financial hit on really low priced books on Alibris.

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RonaldLaeremans Ex Member I love YaBB 1G - YaBB 2!	Re: Alibris Gold Worth It? Reply #3 - Oct 11^th, 2009 at 12:55pm Stack, Why wouldn't you just price the books that you don't have listed for Priority or International, higher on Alibris? That is trivial to do in the AOB repricer. Ronald
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Stacks_o_Books

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #4 - Oct 12^th, 2009 at 1:17am

Well, maybe trivial if you're well-versed in Perl, which I am not. I know enough to make me dangerous. Very dangerous.

I offset the Priority Mail/International Mail cost hit by marking up all my listings on Alibris across the board. But I've learned that it just doesn't pay to list the really cheap stuff there - even though the monthly cost difference is slight, I don't make enough to even offset that. So I just don't list them there. It's easier for me than trying to figure out a Perl script!

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WhiteUnicorn

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #5 - Oct 12^th, 2009 at 11:47pm

RonaldLaeremans wrote on Oct 11^th, 2009 at 12:55pm:

Stack,

Why wouldn't you just price the books that you don't have listed for Priority or International, higher on Alibris? That is trivial to do in the AOB repricer.

Ronald

Are you saying (implying) that SOLOIST will automatically change more than just the core price in your AOB database (assuming the proper coding of course)? I haven't found that to be the case and have actually been told that the core price was all that could be changed. It sure would be nice if it were possible to change other items in your database.

De

DeWayne White
http://www.WhiteUnicornBooks.com
Repeat orders at our site receive a 10 percent discount.
Visit our Arkham, Mycroft & Moran, and Fedogan & Bremer page at
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Contact me for Perl Scripts for repricing your inventory on AoB

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RonaldLaeremans

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #6 - Oct 13^th, 2009 at 12:05am

Code:

    # Adjust site specific prices for sites where one can't select expedited or international shipping per item
    if ( ($market->{my_item}->{expd}) eq 'n' )
    {
	  $v->{comments} .= sprintf ( qq[Adding %1.2f to price on Alibris, Valore.)<br>], $no_choice_expedited);
	  $v->{price}->{ali} = $new_price + $no_choice_expedited;
	  $v->{price}->{val} = $new_price + $no_choice_expedited;
    }
    else
    {
	  $v->{price}->{ali} = 0;
	  $v->{price}->{val} = 0;
    }

Works for me.

Ronald

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WhiteUnicorn

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #7 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 12:24pm

RonaldLaeremans wrote on Oct 13^th, 2009 at 12:05am:

Code:


# Adjust site specific prices for sites where one can't select expedited or international shipping per item
    if ( ($market->{my_item}->{expd}) eq 'n' ) ...

Works for me.

Ronald

Do the prices actually stick when you run the code through SOLOIST? I know that you can have something show up when you use the Pricing Test on the page with your inventory. For example a simple script
Code:


$v = {};
$v->{changed} = "n";
$v->{no_manual_reprice} = 0; 
$v->{price}->{core} = $market->{my_item}->{core_price} + 100;
$v->{comments} = "My Price: $market->{my_item}->{core_price}\n";
$market->{my_item}->{core_price} += 10;
$v->{comments} .= "My Changed Price: $market->{my_item}->{core_price}\n";
return $v;

outputs

Code:


$ScriptOutput1 = {
  'no_manual_reprice' => 0,
  'changed' => 'n',
  'price' => {
    'core' => '144.99'
  }
};


Comments:
My Price: 44.99
My Changed Price: 54.99

So both $v->{price}->{core} and $market->{my_item}->{core_price} are changed but they don't stick [if $v->{changed} were to be set to 'y', then the 144.99 would stick]. Unfortunately, even though I do have an account on AoB, I don't list through AoB so I can't test your code.

Thanks for any comments.

De

DeWayne White
http://www.WhiteUnicornBooks.com
Repeat orders at our site receive a 10 percent discount.
Visit our Arkham, Mycroft & Moran, and Fedogan & Bremer page at
http://www.WhiteUnicornBooks.com/home/arkhamhouse.html
A proud member of the IOBA - http://www.IOBA.org.

Contact me for Perl Scripts for repricing your inventory on AoB

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RonaldLaeremans

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Re: Alibris Gold Worth It?
Reply #8 - Nov 9^th, 2009 at 6:42pm

Yes. At least based at looking at my inventory where the prices on on Alibris and Valore were the right amount higher for the 10 books I just checked. I didn't specifically check it with a new repricing run.

Of course later in the script the changed flag is also set.

BTW, the lack of actual documentation of AOB on the more advanced subjects like this and in general the fact that AOB doesn't seem to be interested in making their system easier to integrate with the workflow larger sellers already have or want to custom build still annoys me to no end.

Ronald

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