Back in the day when I really was an online book seller, I was an early fan of Abebooks. The owners of the website were used and rare book dealers and totally understood the trade. When AbeBooks acquired Germany's JustBooks GmbH online book marketplace in 2001 and the folks from JustBooks really took over the operations, it started down the slippery slope to being another Amazon clone without the customer base. Record quality became shoddy, penny sellers proliferated, shady mega-dealers signed up and the whole place became estranged from the real world of used and rare books. Many predicted that it was a matter of time before Amazon simply swallowed the operation, especially when Abebooks entered the new book market. Well those fears have been fully realized as Amazon announced today that they have acquired Abebooks. I thank the bookselling gods that I no longer list my wares on either site.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Amazon acquires Abebooks
Back in the day when I really was an online book seller, I was an early fan of Abebooks. The owners of the website were used and rare book dealers and totally understood the trade. When AbeBooks acquired Germany's JustBooks GmbH online book marketplace in 2001 and the folks from JustBooks really took over the operations, it started down the slippery slope to being another Amazon clone without the customer base. Record quality became shoddy, penny sellers proliferated, shady mega-dealers signed up and the whole place became estranged from the real world of used and rare books. Many predicted that it was a matter of time before Amazon simply swallowed the operation, especially when Abebooks entered the new book market. Well those fears have been fully realized as Amazon announced today that they have acquired Abebooks. I thank the bookselling gods that I no longer list my wares on either site.
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2 comments:
That's bad news. I rely quite a lot on both, and I suspect things willnow go downhll... O
Oh well....
I like your pages. As a sometime librarian and no a writer, I Ccn't resist anything relating to books!
Can't spell, or at any rate, type, tonight, either, apparently :(
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