keziak
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posted on August 31, 2000 04:28:10 AM new
Hi -
I just listed a heavy, oversize paperback on half.com. I know that the shipping on this will exceed their allowance by $1-2 dollars, so I wanted to list for somewhat more than half. I did so, then went back and checked. When you pull up the book by title and get the listings, it says there are no copies available.
Go into the specific listing and it does mention that there is one for "more than half." But who would bother if on the first screen it says nothing is there? I know that I skip those when I'm scanning for books by an author.
Maybe this feature works better if there are some "below half" copies on the record already. What has been your experience so far?
keziak
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athena1365
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posted on August 31, 2000 04:58:40 AM new
keziak,
I posted a brand new textbook (runs $53) for $35 yesterday morning on half.com, the only copy listed. It was gone last night. I didn't even have a chance to see how it turned up on the page. So, for me, that feature worked fine. It too is heavy, though, and they want it shipped Priority, so it will be at least $4.30 if not more. I figure all the times I got more shipping allowance than I needed will compensate for this one big one, but I certainly don't want to make this a habit! It was encouraging to see that someone would be willing to pay more than half at "half" com, but if there were already copies at half price or below, I'm not sure it would sell. Reputation and feedback doesn't seem to mean an awful lot there; the cheapest price goes period. At least that's my impression.
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VeryModern
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posted on August 31, 2000 05:46:07 AM new
>>>>Reputation and feedback doesn't seem to mean an awful lot there; the cheapest price goes period. At least that's my impression. >>>.
Agree. I think it is because half.com gives the impression that if you are unhappy as a buyer they will go to bat for you. At least this is how is was before ebay bought and I first found the site, perhaps they have changed their intro.
Has anyone had a bad deal? How was it handled?
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abacaxi
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posted on August 31, 2000 06:43:51 AM new
I have sold at least FOUR books at more than half-price already and only been listing a few weeks (had a bunch up for a couple of months, but "on vacation".
They are scarce, and these are like new ... so I'm using about 3/4 price on them and no one seems to have trouble finding them.
check for "The Hobbyist's Guide to Successful Koi keeping" to see how a 3/4 book looks on half.com ...seller name abacaxi
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keziak
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posted on August 31, 2000 07:50:12 AM new
thanks for posting that (about the Koi fish books). I looked at how the record displayed and then double-checked mine. What I was doing wrong was looking at the wrong title record. Once I scrolled down and found mine, it did in fact say there was 1 in stock. It's just that they have a ton of separate records with the same title. Thanks again!!
Keziak
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Lisa_B
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posted on August 31, 2000 09:34:09 AM new
I have found that as much as I enjoy using half.com, their search results don't always seem to be accurate.
For example, I can enter an ISBN or UPC and get nothing, but if I try entering specific titles, authors or artists in different ways I will be able to bring something up that way. Very weird . . .
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athena1365
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posted on August 31, 2000 02:10:06 PM new
WHEW! Did I learn a lesson today! That large paperback textbook cost over $7.00 to send Priority!! Half.com's shipping allowance doesn't even begin to cover that one. 
I'm seriously considering dropping the priority shipping option since I've posted a number of heavy paperback textbooks. Anyone else opted for bookrate only for that reason?
I wish half.com allowed you to selectively post shipping methods for each book, or at least had some mechanism to more fairly compensate for shipping larger books.
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Lisa_B
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posted on August 31, 2000 02:32:13 PM new
Athena, probably most buyers would opt for the book rate option anyway, and I imagine it will even out in the end. I sent several things yesterday that actually cost less than the book-rate allowance.
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nowwhat
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posted on August 31, 2000 04:45:18 PM new
athena1365 ~ I only offer Book Rate shipping on Half.com. My reason is that I have too many things to keep track of between eBay books and Half.com books as it is. I would rather just send everything the same way and not have to worry about mistakes.
If you don't want to offer only Book Rate, maybe for really heavy books you could say Book Rate shipping only in the description line.
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jake
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posted on August 31, 2000 05:35:52 PM new
What's the deal with the shipping costs at half? I just noticed if a buyer buys 2 paperbacks from the same seller, the total shipping cost is $3.90. But the seller only gets $2.16 of that...half keeps the other 1.74! Plus the seller pays a 15% commission! It looks like half is making more on each sale than the seller does!
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reston_ray
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posted on August 31, 2000 05:45:27 PM new
JAKE - I agree. The owners at Half.com seem to be reaching deep into the pockets of sellers.
I wonder who it could be?
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athena1365
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posted on August 31, 2000 05:53:14 PM new
Thanks for the imput  I eliminated the priority shipping option. I can't see cutting into my little bit of profit THAT much. This was the first person to opt for priority over bookrate (probably a college student who needed the book pronto!)
jake, I don't mind the 15% commission too much...after all, they provide exposure and convenience in billing customers. However, it does bug me that they also take a cut of the shipping costs. That's just too much! They don't do a thing to help me package and ship these books so why gouge sellers like that? [sigh!] Still, no one is holding a gun to my head to sell there, and so I'll tolerate it...
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kyna
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posted on August 31, 2000 06:09:18 PM new
Hi, VeryModern:
I had a deal where I bought a VHS and never got it. Reported it to half.com and they sent me an email about 10 days later saying they'd tried to contact the seller and got no response, so they credited my account. Very painless. I was pleased.
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VeryModern
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posted on August 31, 2000 06:13:30 PM new
kyna - thanks for posting. This is the impression I had and it is very VERY good to hear they follow through. Good guys win, you gotta love that!
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xifene
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posted on August 31, 2000 06:36:16 PM new
I ordered two copies of the same book from one seller on the same day. He shipped one of the two books. (They should have show up on his end as two books in one order. I assume he didn't notice and shipped one accidentally.) I left him a 2 of 5 feedback saying only one of the two books I ordered arrived.
I reported it to half.com; about ten days later I received the other book in the mail. The next day I got an email from half.com saying the book had been returned to the seller and he had reshipped. I went back in and changed my feedback on the seller to 5 of 5.
--xifene--
http://www.auctionusers.org
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