Alibris, an online marketplace for rare, used and out-of-print books, is trying to communicate with professional dealers books, which are its main suppliers, they are in the middle of a crisis. Supply flooding the market, in particular, from the people who just want to clear their shelves and make some money. These sales people are promoted by a number of online merchants, including Alibris, Half.com, Amazon.com, eBay and. Alibris built a number of powerful features to help both buyers and sellers of books. Among them, the service pricing that allows sellers to charge market prices for their books automatically. Alibris wants to encourage its dealers to take advantage of this service: the problem is that most of the market prices are significantly lower than the prices dealers set for your books.
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by Andrew McAfee Source: Harvard Business School 21 pages. Publication Date: 05 Oct 2004. Prod. #: 605035-PDF-ENG
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