February 3rd, 2010
New notice found at Sellers Home -» Amazon Seller Community -» Amazon Announcements -» Seller Success
The Standard Book Loader File will soon require the item-condition field
Posted: Feb 1, 2010 1:20 PM
This notice is to advise you of an important change we are making to one of the inventory listing tools you may use on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.
Currently, the Standard Book Loader File template has two distinct condition fields. The “item-condition” field accepts only numeric values (1-11). The “condition” field accepts textual condition descriptions. In an effort to simplify the upload template and improve the quality of the data submitted, the “condition” field will be removed from the Standard Book Loader File template and sellers will be required to populate the “item-condition” field with valid values using the numeric codes designated by Amazon. See the template’s Data Definitions tab for the valid numeric values.
After this change is implemented, if the “item-condition” field is not present, you will receive a template-level error and all records will be rejected. If the “item-condition” field is not populated for specific SKUs, you will receive data errors. Once you add valid condition values for the SKUs it will be possible to create or modify the listings.
This change will be implemented on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca within the next 30 to 60 days. If you are using the Standard Book Loader File template now with the “condition” field instead of the “item-condition” field, please make the necessary changes to your files so you will be prepared when the new processing rules are implemented.
If you have questions or feedback about this change, please send them to bookloader-feedback@amazon.com.
http://snipurl.com/u9hn1
Karin Isgur Bergsagel, BookThink News Editor
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February 3rd, 2010
Just as we are all wondering which way to jump on March 30th when eBay raises fees, along comes a promotion (for Stores Subscribers only) to test Fixed Price listings for 10 cents:
http://announcements.ebay.com/2010/02/limited-time-offer-list-in-fixed-price-for-just-10
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Attention sellers! Starting tomorrow, February 2 until March 29, you can list in Fixed Price for just 10¢ Insertion Fees when you have an eBay Store subscription.
If you’re already a Store subscriber this is a great way to ramp up your regular Fixed Price listings and move more of your inventory to full search exposure now—even before the new low fee structure announced last week, takes effect March 30.
If you haven’t yet subscribed to an eBay Store, now you have 2 great reasons to do it today!
1. Start taking advantage of low Fixed Price Insertion Fees right away—no need to wait until the new fee structure takes effect.
2. Subscribe or upgrade your current Store subscription now, and pay no additional monthly fees until April!
Karin Isgur Bergsagel, BookThink News Editor
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February 2nd, 2010
“Sellers who are wondering what impact eBay’s pending changes will have on their own business may want to check their October sales data. In a podcast interview with AuctionBytes on Friday afternoon, eBay executive Todd Lutwak revealed that eBay had put all of the SIF inventory in Core for a period of time in the fall.”
“Todd said in Friday’s interview, “We actually put all of the SIF (Store Inventory Format) inventory on Core for a period during Q4 on the U.S. marketplace in order to test this.”
More at:
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl
Karin Isgur Bergsagel, BookThink News Editor
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February 1st, 2010
Many of you will remember Chris Lowenstein’s column for BookThink, The Accidental Antiquarian
Book Hunter’s Holiday has now published her first catalogue, on Dante Alighieri. The catalogue is available as a downloadable PDF at her website:
http://www.bookhuntersholiday.com
Even cooler, Americana Exchange has featured the catalogue as an example to demonstrate new software on their site that allows a person reading an electronic catalogue to “turn the pages” almost as they would when reading a book.
The link to the catalogue as it is displayed with AE’s new, “page-turning” software can be found here:
http://tiny.cc/e9fzK
Congratulations, Chris! We knew you when.
Karin Isgur Bergsagel, BookThink News Editor
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February 1st, 2010
The new AE Monthly is out, and features an excellent look at the past decade and year in review:
By Susan Halas and Chris Volk
Many independent booksellers found 2009 was a better than expected year with a stronger than expected finish. It was also marked the end of a decade when everyone and his dog became a bookseller.
The rush to bookselling was not surprising given an economy that turned sour and an occupation with a very low threshold of entry. The field generated as many business models as there were vendors. Some sold on eBay: cited in a 2005 survey as the primary source of income for more than 724,000 Americans. Many focused on Amazon, which launched its Marketplace in 2000 and reported 1.7 million active third party sellers by 2009 (not all of them booksellers).
Others flocked to the more traditional multi-dealers sites like Alibris, AbeBooks and biblio.com. Still others relied strongly on their own independent websites jazzed up with the new social media bells and whistles. With the influx of hordes of newcomers, those who were already established in the field had to work harder and be more creative to stay ahead. The best performers seemed to have a strong on-line presence and an increasingly sophisticated command of the tech repetoire.
Read more at:
http://tinyurl.com/ybktr4l
Karin Isgur Bergsagel, BookThink News Editor
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