Hunting and Fishing for Inventory

I spent yesterday doing something I have never done before – negotiating with an online customer to purchase part of his collection. Many times over the years people have asked – some customers, some just wanderers who landed on our website – but I have never been even remotely tempted to try it. Mostly it’s because they never offered anything I wanted, but also because I was cognizant of the inherent risk — not to mention the high cost of shipping. But this guy wrote me a charming note after buying a book, which sort of primed me for the kill I guess. Once he had me glowing like a lightning bug from all that flattery he asked if I might like to buy some hunting and fishing books. Ouch – got me on that one! Of course I would if they were any good.

Well, they’re good, or at least most of them are. The problem is that three are TOO good and he had already looked them up and was dazzled by the high end listings. Of course “looking them up” is a meaningless term anyway, but I have a hunch he knows that. In his case, he compared prices at ABE, which might be an okay place to start, but when you’re the bookseller buying inventory it’s definitely not the place to stop. With the economy where it is (which is a different place than it was when he first brought this up last week) I cannot afford to make a mistake here. So yesterday afternoon I hunkered down and went at the task with a vengeance, making notes along the way. This sounds easier than it was because not only is there much cross-referencing involved, but this is the dreaded Medina high School BAND CAMP week. As luck would have it, my office affords me the best seat in the house for a musical and general screaming sound track. I'm thinking fly fishing and the band camp director is shouting ""Detail! Detail! Directional!" But the best part was when he broke out into an aria, singing "Snickety, snickety, snickety! ..." Whatever that means.

Anyway, the first place I looked was bookfinder, as this shows a fairly decent array of prices. But I also googled a few that seemed to be too good to be true and, lo and behold, found that one was available new in the 1998 edition at Blackstone for $40 while secondary market sellers logged in at $150 on the low end. Even with paying shipping from the UK a buyer would be better off going with Blackstone. The other tool I utilized is Alibris’ Inventory Demand. This is an interesting thing because it will not only show you the range of prices on the alibris site, but, when available, realized prices for the same book over the period of its lifespan. What’s interesting is that one of the books sold twice this month in the $125 range, yet the lowest price on alibris was $150 and the recommended price was $118. In some instances you could see clearly that even though the recommended and listings prices hung on at the top of the ladder the book was clearly a shelf sitter. In one case the last time it sold was two years ago! Needless to say, you better get competitive with that baby or you’ll be holding it until you’re too arthritic to turn the pages.

Before I had done this in-depth research I’d logged some of the ISBNs into my own database, as hunting and fishing is an area in which I’ve sold a lot. Sure enough, many of his titles popped right up. Of course that was only rudimentary, as I’d sold all of them long enough ago to mistrust the prices, but I didn’t want to put too much time into it if it wasn’t going to work out, so I asked him what he wanted for the lot minus the three special ones. The figure he shot back seemed okay and further research confirmed that it was. Of course we had different opinions on individual titles but I was looking at the aggregate, so it didn’t matter. The sticky wicket, however, remained the three three-figure titles. In the end I offered him $100 for one and $50 each for the others. Grand total for entire portion of the collection-- $270. Immediately he countered with $300.

To my surprise I did not wrestle with myself for even a second over it. I had given him my best offer and was prepared to walk away – not because I necessarily WANTED to, but because reality demanded it. So I wrote back expressing true regret, but declining the counter offer and even suggesting that he shop them around to other dealers. A period of time passed and in the end he accepted my offer, commenting that I drive a hard bargain.

The thing is though, I DON’T drive a hard bargain. I’ve been known to pay too much more times than I can count. But that was in good times, so the fallout wasn’t catastrophic or even particularly problematical. Today no one knows for sure what the fall-out will be to the used and collectible market with all this electronic wizardry and the collapse of the chain stores. We may win, we may lose. But inbetween now and when all that shakes down there could be some hard economic times. The bottom line is I like this guy and did not want to cheat him in any way. But I also didn’t want to do damage to myself. All told I’m content with the deal, though I would be less than candid if I didn’t admit that worry still nibbles around the edges. It’s not due to any lack of trust in him – it’s the ever tumbling prices. By the time the books arrive they may have given the Dow Jones a run for its money.

What I’m NOT worried  about though is my bargaining partner. I offered to send him a check with the idea that he would ship the books upon receipt. But he elected to do it the other way around so I can examine everything and make sure it all lives up to the descriptions he gave me. Buying books sight unseen is probably not the world’s best idea and I still would be very cautious, but it’s an interesting experiment, especially since truly good books are getting both more expensive and more elusive. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

Meanwhile, "Snickety, snickety, snickety ...! Detail! DETAIL!"