vincent pannequin is a professional bookseller who closed his physical bookstore, dioscures, in 2013 to sell books exclusively on ebay. fr. a good move, since the last year of operation had been quite disappointing. Today, his pseudonym amaterasu55 (more than 3,000 sales and 99.8% satisfied customers) is known among buyers, as his selection of books from 18 to 17. strong>th regularly updated with interesting books in good to very good condition. Although it’s a touchy subject among booksellers, eBay is one of the best places to buy books in France. in fact, the offer is important and the prices are usually reasonable. far from the “ebay craze” of the early years, when common books sold for unexpected prices, the market has regulated itself. but ebay.fr has just changed its classification and it could cause a major change in the business.
vincent pannequin, when did you start selling books on ebay? I had an ebay account, amaterasu55, even before I opened my physical bookstore in 2002, but I only bought with it. the name comes from a trip in japan. “amaterasu” is the sun goddess and “55” is a lucky number. At first, I only sold incomplete or defective books on ebay, those that I could not include in my catalogues. It took me a few years before I decided to sell better books.
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how is the market on ebay today? The ebay market is good, better than a few years ago. but on the other hand you have so many new sellers, listing hundreds of books. As a result, the site is cluttered and good dealers are losing visibility.
what is the difference with a physical bookstore? ebay still has a very bad reputation among some “normal” booksellers in france. how can you explain that? There is less and less difference. Of course, buyers can’t touch the books, but the pictures make up for it. and I can add from experience that sometimes I prefer not to be in a bookstore to avoid hostile colleagues (laughs). jokes aside, I have a feeling that book collectors who buy on ebay also go to bookstores. and i think ebay doesn’t have the bad reputation it did a few years ago when many booksellers saw it as unfair competition. now i think they see ebay as a place to buy books between auctions.
You told me that ebay is a touchy subject. why? maybe that was an old reflex… but somehow it’s true that “normal” booksellers don’t like to be known for buying on ebay. they may see it as a less noble way of doing business. but it changed a few years ago when some of them started selling their shares on ebay under their real names, and that was a bit of a revolution
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what do you think of fake sales or “disguised reserve prices” on ebay? yes it exists, I will not deny it; but usually it’s so obvious that you can see it right away. And honestly, I don’t think it happens more on ebay than on physical auctions, where so many books are sold over and over again…
It seems that the prices on ebay are much lower than in “normal” bookstores. do you agree? do you think some books belong on ebay while others should be sold elsewhere? yes, I agree, but only for the most common books, which booksellers refer to as the “little books”. the others are surely sold at very good prices, such as the 1762 edition of the fables of lafontaine de les fermiers généraux, which is always an ebay star. but surely the books that cost tens of thousands of euros are not the most salable there, and I would not propose them. but it is a personal opinion and I know some dealers who do not hesitate; Good for them, they are brave enough to do it.
ebay seems to be getting less efficient when it comes to selling old books. do you think it will stop being an interesting selling point one of these days? on ebay france, which in my opinion is the most important place on ebay for rare books, I didn’t think it was less efficient until recently. yesterday, october 13, ebay france decided to regroup all rare books in a single category and it is clearly a regression. (In fact, it is no longer possible to select books by centuries. Consequently, one has to go through hundreds of “books printed before 1900” before finding an 18th century book. Many buyers and sellers now urge ebay.fr to return to the above formula, but the website is not known for paying much attention to its users – editor’s note). this is not good news, and they made the decision without consulting anyone. I know a lot of people are already complaining that books have become quite difficult to locate now.
what is your recipe to have a “good sale” on ebay? I always try to give the best possible description, or at least point out all the flaws so that when buyers receive their books, they think they look better than described. and of course I download many images from each book; and good I do not mean the artistic but informative. It takes a lot of time, but it’s necessary to build a solid reputation.
what are the skills required for an ebay bookseller compared to a “normal” one? I don’t think there are more or less skills to work on ebay.
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Today you live in Ireland. is it a question of taxes? is it still interesting when you probably have to “import” your books and then ship them back to france, with more expensive shipping rates? nothing to do with taxes: my partner is Polish and already worked and lived here; that was my main motivation. life is less stressful here so no regrets. In fact, I import most of my books from France, but it has become quite cheap and easy to work with online sites that offer discounts on courier services. For example, a package of 20 kilos costs only €30. shipping costs are more expensive for my sales, yes; but the quality of my books makes up for it and buyers know it.
Is France your main market? Is it a specific market? France is my main market, in fact, since I mainly sell books written in French. includes de facto Belgium and Switzerland. It is a specific market in the sense that France is the place in the world where you will find the largest number of book auctions, some every day, and the largest number of book collectors. but ebay france attracts collectors and booksellers from all over the world and the united states is my second best market.
what do you think of paypal? paypal is a very useful tool since you get paid instantly but it has a fairly high cost (4 to 5% of the sales and shipping fees). and the downside is that their customer service almost always sides with the buyers when there is a problem. They advertise a guarantee for the buyer but it only consists of recovering the money from the seller.
what could ebay do to be more efficient when it comes to old books? ebay france should go back to the old system they had with subcategories, where they could properly list their books. but if they do it again, and nothing is certain, since they are well known to ignore their customers, they should clean up all the junk, like magazines or cheap modern books, that litter the “rare books” section.
thibault ehrengardt
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