Monday, October 10, 2005

Alibris: Adding a Middle Man - Hung, Drawn, Quartered and Damned

An interesting article about Alibris, the company we sell books through online, from a perspective I have rarely heard voiced but deserves more attention.

Their ads are good. They're simply old dustjackets with a tag line based on the premise, 'Lost it then? Find it here.' And that's a shame because the company is a complete waste of time and money. Despite large warehouses and maybe a nice suite of offices they are a web-based business. But they're trying to add a layer between customer and retailer when this is exactly the fat that is being reamed from the book business. So why are they doing it and how did they get to the position they are in today?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

this needs more attention, DAVE

sky said...

yes, i agree, i think the time is rapidly approaching (whenever we average $2000 a month online) when it will be worth our while to switch over to ABE. they treat their people much better, we get the full value of the book, none of this middle-man charging the supplier strong-arm bullshit 15%, etc. no more problems communicating with customers whose books are cancelled or fucked up... we'll see, there may be even more mergers and changes before we can even do anything. for now, we're makin' money. - cosby