(formerly the Advanced Book Exchange) is an online marketplace for
Book s. Most books listed are ordinary
Used Book s, many are
Rare or
Out-of-print , and a growing number are new books. The company, based in
Victoria, Canada and having offices in
Düsseldorf ,
Germany and
Oviedo ,
Spain was incorporated in
1995 and launched their website in
1996 .
At present, they claim to list more than 80 million titles on sale by 13,500 booksellers. Sellers pay a monthly subscription to list their books on the site, ranging from ,
France , and
Germany as well as the central North American '.com' site. The website
IberLibro.com , covering the Spanish market with a different but largely overlapping database, has become a part of the Abebooks Community.
In November 2005 Abebooks acquired
BookFinder.com , an American book price comparison "metasearch" shopping service site.
In February 2006, Abebooks acquired book-inventory and order-management company FillZ. [http://www.thebookstandard.com/bookstandard/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002075519
Abebooks allows searchers to access the gathered listings of many independent bookstores, thereby allowing small, independent players to compete with bookselling superstores. Some of the member bookstores offer their books online only while others also maintain a regular storefront. Visitors to Abebooks do not see just a single corporate book retailer — they see a network of independent booksellers, the vast majority of which are owner-operated, small businesses.
Booksellers upload their inventory data to the Abebooks database, specifying information about each book including condition and price. Prices are fixed, there are no auctions. Items available range from the extremely common, where there might be hundereds of copies listed, to truly unique manuscript material. In addition to books; magazines, journals, illustration art, vintage photographs, and paper ephemera are offered. Sellers can, within limits, set their own standard postage rates to various countries or by different carriers. Booksellers can upload their inventory using their own spreadsheet software or via the site's interface. Items that sell are mailed directly from the individual bookseller location, except for certain new books from a few dealers which are "dropshipped" from the wholesalers or the publishers.
Listings originating on any of Abebooks' sites are combined with all, except the Iberlibro site, which retains a separate inventory. While Abebooks is arguably the largest such site, many of the booksellers who list on Abebooks also list their books on multiple competing websites such as Alibris, Biblio.com, and Amazon.com.
Abebooks initially offered its services for a flat listings fee, based on the number of titles listed for sale. The model was changed in the early 2000s , to include a commission on successful sales. In April 2006, Abebooks started processing almost all customer payments directly, rather than having booksellers receive credit card details; the credit card processing charge paid by booksellers effectively raised the commission for those sellers working with cheaper credit card processing services. Changes in Abebooks' pricing model have often been met by opposition by some of its customers.
Abebooks was founded in 1995 by Rick Pura and Keith Waters. The site was launched in 1996, initially including listings for only four bookstores. Abebooks acquired Germany's
JustBooks GmbH online book marketplace in 2001, which helped the company expand into the German, French and British online bookselling markets. In 2004 Abebooks expanded its model to include new books, and acquired the Spanish company
IberLibro , to better serve
Spanish and
Portuguese -language markets.
From the late 1990s through 2005, Abebooks had reseller agreements with
EBay ,
Half.com ,
Barnes & Noble.com , and
Amazon.com , allowing Abebooks to market and sell listing booksellers' books through those channels; these agreements were dissolved by Abebooks in 2005. In 2005, Abebooks also acquired
BookFinder.com , a very successful online search engine used by book buyers and sellers. In 2006, Abebooks acquired
FillZ , an inventory management service provider that supports large volume booksellers who sell their books on multiple marketplaces.
