tip for book sellers

[keziak]

I stumbled upon a trick that is mostly helping me with a problem of the past several weeks, ebay assigning the wrong category when listing by ISBN.  I've discovered that if I accept the wrong category, later it will block me from relisting for...having the wrong category. 

I have discovered that if I do not list by ISBN, instead create a listing from scratch (in the right category), I can enter the ISBN number on the SYI form and voila! the catalog listing comes up with the right category, photo, and descriptive information.

[reallynicestamps]

Well, that explains a few things.

The ISBN is wonky in so many ways.

The one that affects me most is that it only accepts US -based ISBNs. Even with Penguin, which is British based but now owns most of the US publishing houses, if I enter a British ISBN it will not show me any books.

Same for Canadian and Australian editions. And again, even if those books were never published in the USA.

And then later when it asks for an ISBN, often, will not accept it.

Thank heavens we are allowed to state Not Applicable.

I've been suspicious of the entire catalogue since the days when entering the ISBN for Anne of Green Gables brought up the information for Lady Chatterley's Lover.  (I always knew Anne had a secret life behind her publicly secret life.)

[mistwomandancing]

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keziak wrote:

I stumbled upon a trick..........

Thank you!!!!! 

These boards are worth their weight in gold with all the sharing of tips, etc.  Very much appreciated.

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

Great tip!

It's also possible to list books outside the Books category and forego the product catalog entirely.  For example, I list value guides in the publications subcategory of Pottery & Glass or the appropriate Collectibles section.  Some non-fiction (or even fiction) can go in the Culture/Ethnicities category.  In other words, classify by subject!

~~C~~

[badwolf12]

@duchess-at-speakeasy When you list outside of the books category, do you find that you get as much traffic on your listings?

When buyers search it will often default to a category so I wonder if listing somewhere other than Books would exclude your items from best match search results at times?

By the way, I hate when the system does that and I'm doing a broad search. I would rather see results from All Categories and narrow it down myself.

[keziak]

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@duchess-at-speakeasy wrote:

Great tip!

It's also possible to list books outside the Books category and forego the product catalog entirely.  For example, I list value guides in the publications subcategory of Pottery & Glass or the appropriate Collectibles section.  Some non-fiction (or even fiction) can go in the Culture/Ethnicities category.  In other words, classify by subject!

~~C~~

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I flirt with that inconsistently. For example listing a book under Crafts instead of Books.  one time I had a slew of books on spinning and listed those in Crafts because there is no good sub-category for spinning under Books.  Many categories have sub-cats for books and media (like Sports) but I usually stick with Books.

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

I haven't listed books recently -- except for a general price guide that is more than a decade old and hasn't drawn much interest -- but certain subjects do.  For example, I've sold books on Christmas-related collectibles, lighting, postcards, ghosts and the paranormal, cowgirls, Victorian shell trinket boxes, and so on.  None of them has been in the Books category.

When I search for books on Hawaii, I almost always find them in the Cultural-Ethnicities category and sometimes in categories I wouldn't even think of.  I start withh "all categories" and drill down.  For general titles, I  run a search by author and possibly title.  So I think relevant keywords in the listing title and description are more important, and a much simpler way to find what I need.

~~C~~

[books...forthememories]

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@duchess-at-speakeasy wrote:

I haven't listed books recently -- except for a general price guide that is more than a decade old and hasn't drawn much interest -- but certain subjects do.  For example, I've sold books on Christmas-related collectibles, lighting, postcards, ghosts and the paranormal, cowgirls, Victorian shell trinket boxes, and so on.  None of them has been in the Books category.

When I search for books on Hawaii, I almost always find them in the Cultural-Ethnicities category and sometimes in categories I wouldn't even think of.  I start withh "all categories" and drill down.  For general titles, I  run a search by author and possibly title.  So I think relevant keywords in the listing title and description are more important, and a much simpler way to find what I need.

~~C~~

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When I search for books I do so by author, subject or title.  And if I can't find it here, I go over to abe and look.  

[timemachine777]

Who even searches books using the ISBN?

[copper.boom]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

Who even searches books using the ISBN?

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I do it often. It's most helpful with harder to find tltles because I get more search results using the ISBN.

It's also very helpful in pulling more specific search results when there are different editions of a book.

When there are several different books with the same title the ISBN is helpful in searching because even when you enter title + author you'll still get some of the non-relevant results (from any search engine) but using the ISBN narrows it down.

Then there are times I've called libraries or bookstores trying to find a book and giving the ISBN avoids having to spell out the author's name & words in the title and ensures it's the correct edition as well.

Sometimes I look for books that are in a different language and it is so much easier to pull up search results when typing the ISBN since some sites will have the title in english and others in the book's native language.

[keziak]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

Who even searches books using the ISBN?

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Not many people. The ISBN is used to pull up the book record in the ebay catalog.  I am sure you can do that by entering the title instead but the ISBN gets you to the right entry faster.