On a recent author Book reading we had, a question came up which got redirected back to our bookstore team. 

Does book titles, descriptions and pictures matter when your Listing online? The question was raised due to the fact that booksellers mostly rely on the upc and Isbn databases link to the publishing companies complete books listing information.

Although most of these information are all linked the fact still remains that there are so called human and technology errors. Easily sometimes one can observed going to a bookselling site searching for a book then comparing it to another site.  Unfortunately,      most of the time one simply compares prices. The fact is there are times the book picture might be the same but then there’s missing complete title name or even times when the specification or descriptions like editions and or publishers might be different.

Especially on photos, most of the time they are stock photos being subscribed by sites from Amazon and such. Does every buyer really go read the entire listing before clicking the order button? Not necessarily hence returns, refunds and exchanges occur after the book arrives and the discovery comes into place that one thought they bought what they did they bought.

Although the fact is there are thousands and millions that booksellers have to managed on inventory, there should be still some kind of content management and quality control. A bookseller needs the traditional old method on bookstores back in the days of accurate description and sometimes engaging what’s exciting in that book. We can’t simply rely on the data already prefilled when we list a book as in the end we’re the ones losing the money on returns and refunds. And the fact of the matter is that online booksellers doesn’t really make tons of profit notwithstanding the stiff competition on the big drop shippers selling lower than the publisher book prices in the industry.

And yes, book listing titles, descriptions, specs and photos are extremely important selling books online.

Alex Esguerra
ADLE International
Affordable books on line