AbeBooks Fee Increases Effective April 28

[mandy]

Starting April 28 2008, we will implement several changes to our fees. Today, I would like to explain these pricing changes and the timing for each.

Subscription Fees: These will remain unchanged with the exception of a fee increase starting April 28th for sellers with more than 50,000 listings. Managing sellers with very large inventories requires significant time and resources – hence this change.

Number of listings Monthly fee in US Dollars Monthly fee in GB Pounds Monthly fee in Euro

50,001 - 100,000 200 120 200
100,001 - 150,000 300 175 275
150,001 - 500,000 400 250 350
500,001+ 500 350 450

Commission Fees: Starting April 28th, our 8% commission fee will apply to the total item amount, consisting of the book price + shipping charges + extra charges. This change is for several reasons. Undoubtedly, this will help increase our revenues. These increases will, however, be offset to some extent by escalating infrastructure and online marketing costs. In addition, our customer feedback indicates buyers are unhappy with unusually high shipping costs. We want to avoid the negative buyer experience created by very low book prices that are subsidized by higher shipping charges.

Payment Service Fees: Starting April 28th, orders with a total item value greater than US $500, sold on AbeBooks.com and AbeBooks.co.uk, will be subject to a new, lower credit card processing fee. The first $500 of the order will be subject to current fee of 5.5%; the remaining portion of the order will be subject to a reduced fee of 3.5%. The payment service fee for orders on AbeBooks.fr, AbeBooks.de and IberLibro.com will remain 3.5% for the entire order...

Payment service fees for orders less than $500 in total value will remain unchanged. Booksellers will continue to have the option of offering alternative payment methods, such as check or money order, and no processing fee will apply to these transactions.

Credit Card Processing: In approximately three months (not April 28th) AbeBooks will begin offering a number of new payment card options to buyers, and we will be eliminating the option for all credit card purchases via Seller Direct. As part of the on-going requirements to remain Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliant (PCI DSS), we are now required to discontinue the transmission of all credit card information to our booksellers. We will provide a transition date as soon as the development work for this change has been completed.

full announcement: http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Newsletters...ange.shtml