I own a used Book Store and sell my books on the Internet on a number of different sites. I am charged a commission of 15% to 20% for the books I sell from their sites. This commission is reasonable, but certainly the maximum one would expect to pay a sales representative, particularly one which is not 'live'.
What I find to be unreasonable (not to mention dishonest) is what they call a 'shipping reimbursement'. What this means is that when a customer goes to one of these sites (amazaon.com; bnbq.com; alibris.com) and orders a book from a 3rd party seller (such as my store), a portion of the money the customer thinks he/she is paying for shipping and handling, is actually staying in the coffers of the company. Amazon.com provides $2.26, BNBQ.com and Alibris.com both provide $2.30 to the book seller, so whatever the difference is, remains in their hands.
There is more to shipping expense than just the postage amount, packing materials also cost the book seller money. Since it costs these companies nothing to ship a book from my premises this is clearly a profit-making venture for them and in my opinion borders on theft! In many cases, the amount provided is not enough to cover shipping costs and book sellers have to ship the book at a loss in order to remain in the program. (Amazon.com has an unreasonbly high 90% fulfillment requirement)
These companies also do not allow direct contact between the buyer and the seller for negotiation purposes. (Amazon.com provides the book seller with an e-mail address for the buyer) This is bad for both parties in the transaction. Usually, a flat rate is charged per book, when a consumer is ordering multiple titles and there is no opportunity for the buyer to contact the seller to negotiate a more reasonable shipping rate. When I get an order from a site that allows me to control the amount of shipping charged (like abebooks.com) I never charge the full amount for multiple titles, it is simply too much!
Please be aware when you are buying books online from 3rd parties who list their books with these companies, part of the money you think you are spending on shipping and handling is in actual fact staying with them to feed their insatiable corporate greed!
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