Red Stars Over Abe: AbeBooks Goes Live with its Ratings
- by Michael Stillman
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For example, the smalltime seller could see his ratings tumble because of one unshipped book, or one customer who simply "borrows" the book for a day, always intending to ship it back for a refund on some lame excuse. A bookseller who prices very competitively, or one who has a shop on Main Street, is more likely to have a book sold elsewhere before the listing can be removed than does a higher priced, internet only dealer. The bookseller most likely to rate consistently at five stars is the one who sells "on-demand" reprints. They never run out of inventory, yet most people would not think they are somehow superior to traditional booksellers. On the other hand, the "mega-listers" who have to buy their stock from unsuspecting, legitimate booksellers probably do not fare so well under this rating system. For this we can be grateful.
We tend to side with those who do not see this as a big deal. Most sellers achieve four or five star ratings, which are likely to encourage consumer confidence, even if for the wrong reason. Even a three probably doesn't scare customers off unless it is an expensive book, in which case they are likely doing more research about the seller anyway. The number of sellers who rate less is very small, with only those with very few sales, or something seriously wrong with their business model, likely to suffer. The shortcoming of the system is that it really doesn't say very much, and perhaps this will upset sellers who do a superior job of serving their customers, but still get lumped in with, or rate lower than, the "print-on-demand" dealers.
