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Hannes Blum, Abe.com's president, along with Sue Connors and Jayson Minard, held their November Roundtable November 17, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST. Sellers who participate in the Abe program were encouraged to post questions for the management team to help make the selling site more prosperous and useful. The one-hour session was productive and insightful.
Rather than regurgitate what others had to say, our readers can explore the contents themselves at http://forums.abebooks.com/abecomeng/start. Among the topics under discussion were shipping refunds when a customer cancels the order on Amazon; low shipping reimbursements; prevalent credit card fraud from some countries; difficulties with ISBN look-ups; misuse of book descriptions; and other pertinent topics.
Sellers resented customers they thought bought books, read them and later returned them only to have the seller lose the out-of-pocket shipping costs. Anger wasn't only directed at buyers. Misusing the book description box to advertise Web sites, competitive shipping rates, and misrepresenting the book was something one participant wanted Blum to address.
Blum, who is new to the leadership of Abe.com but no novice to the online bookselling trade, has had prior experience with Justbooks. Most of the problems posed fell into three categories: those that could be added to the list of things Abe will work to improve; those that offered solutions to only part of Abe's clientele; and those items that were beyond Abe's ability to solve.
Blum promised that Abe would not make any major changes until after the holidays but does see that they have a responsibility to improve the site's flow and productivity. One way to insure that, wrote one reader, is to aim at one-click steps that eliminate a multitude of mouse-moves.
Other participants urged Blum and the others to redesign the packing slip to make it as efficient as Alibris' with the buyer's and seller's name appearing twice on the slip.
But, Blum and his staff did admit that there were complaints that stretched beyond their ability to remedy. When inefficiency is derived from a partner like Barnes & Noble or Amazon, Abe can merely suggest and not dictate changes.
One of the things they could change, however, was their data listing engine Homebase, making it more expedient for sellers in order to increase the ease and speed with which they can add books to their inventory.
For more information about Abe.com, please visit their Web site.
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