The Amazon seller Any Book has apparently sold nearly 700,000 items (I’ll guess mainly books), but there’s no apparent reason why they would even sell 100 books. Any Book routinely charges exorbitant prices, has low feedback (92%) and has a generic “Huge seller with millions of transactions! Satisfaction Guaranteed!” description without any details on the edition, condition or completeness of the specific item for sale.
Who are these people who would buy from Any Book? Or is this some kind of Amazon gimmickry to make sellers feel like they too can succeed without really trying?
I would guess that most Amazon buyers don’t bother to look at who the seller is for a used book, since they figure that Amazon’s return policies will protect them.
And just because they have high prices on some books doesn’t mean that they weren’t the lowest price on many others (the ones they sold).
I doubt seriously that Amazon is somehow manufacturing info about a 3rd party seller to make people think that they too could be successful 3rd party sellers.
Is this them? Some seem a little expensive (out of print?), but nothing that jumps out compared to other sellers if you sort by descending price. I found this page complaining about them. There’s a link to an Amazon forum post there as well.
They don’t owe any fees unless they sell, right? Then there is no drawback to having a book sit because it is more expensive, other than having to maintain inventory. Although it sounds like they don’t even do that…
I’ve browsed Amazon offerings regularly for the past decade, and every Any Book offering I’ve seen has been ridiculously priced (like $40 plus for books that are being offered for less than $10 by many other sellers and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a listing where they were the low priced offer unless they’re about the only seller), and for reasons stated in my original post, I don’t see anything of value that they’re providing to justify a purchase from them rather than another seller. I just don’t get it. 92% is a rather poor seller feedback rating, and since their listings are generic, you never know what you’ll receive for the $40+ paid. Who are these buyers who would pay $40 to a 92% seller rather than less than $10 to a 99% seller? By the way, I’m not angry, just curious about this.
Traditional used booksellers either part-time or full-time selling from a few hundred to 50,000 or so books. Usually only one person or a couple–although a small percent have a few employees.
Mega-listers which own hundreds of thousands of books. They buy books in bulk and have prices down to a penny (they make some money on shipping reimbursement as they pay discounted rates for shipping–in any event selling a book for a penny is cheaper than the cost of disposal).
Drop-shippers like Anybook. A drop shipper doesn’t have any stock: instead they scrape the listings of other dealers (for example on half.com) and relist those books at a higher price. When the order comes in they order the book from the dealer who actually owns the book and that seller ships the book directly to the buyer. Note they have many millions of listings–and 99%+ don’t sell. As to why people buy from Anybook, etc: sometimes the book is available from a half.com seller, but not from an another Amazon seller so the the Anybook item is the best or only deal. Some of the time it is the description: would you buy a book in Good condition with a number of defects (such as being ex-library) or a book at a higher price from Anybook which has no defects listed but is described as Good condition? The Anybook description sounds better–but could easily be the same book (a book listed in Good condition can have a number of defects). And some people believe higher priced must be in better condition–just like they assume a higher priced dress in a department store must be better.