When I first started to collect books there was no internet. You went into bookshops, went to book fairs or you received paper book catalogues from book dealers. When I would go into a bookstore for the first time and I liked what I saw, I would ask if they issued catalogues and if so, would they please add me to the list. Same going around to book fairs. Or you could call a well-known bookshop and ask to be put on their lists. Since mail order sales were important most would say yes and continue to send you catalogues, as long as you bought occasionally.
Dealers also received other dealer catalogues, and they built up their peer networks. If a customer came in and asked for a particular title that was not in stock, the dealer would call around to the most likely shops that you carry such a book. From talking with dealers, I learned that they typically offered each other discounts, mostly hearing 20%.
My first experience involving dealer discounts was quite interesting. At the time, 1980s, we lived in Northern Illinois, and there were quite a few good bookshops within an hour’s drive. One day, I went into a shop around Evanston, and I saw a beautiful set of Morocco bound books, roughly twenty in number. I started to look through the books somewhat in disbelief at what I had come across! The complete works of Thomas Chandler Haliburton from Nova Scotia. The Sam Slick and The Clockmaker series, all first editions. It was commonplace around the turn of the twentieth century for dealers or collectors to rebind first editions into sets.
The set was reasonably expensive, and I was not interested in buying them for our library. But it was springtime and in July we would be piling into the car and heading for our annual trip to Nova Scotia. I asked the shop owner if he would hold the set for me – Yup. I went home a called a well-known Nova Scotia book dealer and asked if he was interested in the books, that were in fine condition. He said yes and we settled on a price range depending on condition. I asked if I could use his name as the final purchaser so that I could get a dealer discount – Yup. I went back to the shop and bought the set of books, getting the 20% discount. I guess I was destined to be a dealer.
Headed off to Nova Scotia in our station wagon, with a box of heavy books. I received top price from the Nova Scotia dealer and I think the set disappeared quickly into a library in the Valley. The deal covered 50% of our vacation trip expenses – Yup, dealer destiny.
Thirty years later, we set up Raven & Gryphon Fine Books. And I would ask for and give a 20% discount to other dealers.
By this time the use of paper book catalogues had dwindled to almost zero. Production costs and postage kept going up and interest going down. Internet was the name of the game and Abebooks was the survivor of the many that gave it a try. Abebooks was run out of British Columbia, a real success story, and around the time we got underway, Amazon bought Abebooks! But they left them alone after making sure the right cost model was put into place. No more calling the tech support people, good luck with getting a quick response, and so on. Abebooks runs very smoothly which is good since that is our lifeblood. And thinks just got much better. No more one big block of text, now write paragraphs, use proper language and so on and for me what was terrific was they increased the number of photos from 5 to 20. And no longer did you have to add them one by one – move the whole block of photos, one click.
Now for my CONUNDRUM.
Abebooks has introduced a pilot dealer to dealer discount program. You can choose 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30%. In order to receive a dealer discount, you must offer one. I am torn.
It’s not like the old days where you build relationships with other dealers. And dealers don’t control access to the buyers since the buyers can see all the books that dealers can see. I admit that some collectors don’t like to hunt on the internet and they want their favourite dealer to do that. I have clients like that, and I like them a lot. I worry that the discount is just a loss of margin.
So, I decided to conduct a bit of research. I went onto Abebooks, put in certain authors or illustrators and when the lists came up, I looked to see who was giving discounts and how much. Most frequent discount was 10%, then 15% and then 20%. No one crazy enough to do 25 or 30%.
I looked at the well known American and British dealers and non-participating dealers outnumbered the participants by more that 2 to 1. But that was a lot of participation.
I then turned my attention to Canadian dealers and here the ration was more like 4 to 1, in favour of non-participants. Closer to what I expected.
And in Atlantic Canada only 1 participant out of the 5 I looked at. Same as Canada.
The dealers in Canada that I admire the most are non-participants.
We will be a non-participant, at least until the tide changes!