A Renewed "Half Life"
Half.com Lives
- By Michael Stillman
A look around the half.com home page reveals books are an important part of this site.
By Michael Stillman
In our reviews of the major bookselling sites, we have assiduously avoided looking at Half.com. Why would we? Half.com has been a marked man, a website on death row, with its date of execution formally set. Originally, parent eBay just wanted to get rid of this unloved stepchild, purchased from others a few years ago. July was set as the final date. It encouraged everyone who sold books (and other things) on Half to move their listings to eBay stores, the natural child, loved by the parent though not necessarily by all of the booksellers. The migration was slow. Parent eBay figured sellers needed more time, so they postponed the execution until October 14.
But, something happened along that final walk to the chamber. The sellers did not go quietly into the night. In fact, they let eBay know how little they appreciated the closing of Half.com. Evidently, they voiced their opinions in meetings with management, and the message boards lit up with biting comments. Then, suddenly one day (Sept. 23, specifically), eBay sent out a message to its sellers totally reversing its stand. In it they said. "In our last announcement earlier this summer, we said that Half.com would be closing on October 14, 2004. We have decided NOT to go forward with this plan and will keep Half.com open indefinitely" (emphasis theirs).
What happened? Why the change? Did the pleas of their sellers finally get through? Personally, I doubt that was the reason. They have been speaking up for a long time without eBay listening. More likely this was a response to the old saying "money talks," rather than sellers talk. In the letter, Vice-President and General Manager of Half.com Mike Aufricht said that the attempt to shift sales to eBay had not reduced business at Half. "In fact, loyalty to Half.com has remained strong as we witnessed yet another outstanding back-to-school season on Half.com." He goes on to say that sellers have been arguing to keep Half.com alive, and that, "Your input, as well as the data and experience we have gained during the transition efforts, are the basis for our decision to keep Half.com open." Again, I suspect it was the "data and experience," a likely euphemism for "cash," that was the key factor rather than the "your input" they ignored for so long.
Why they didn't see this sooner is both unexplained and hard to explain. Perhaps patent infringement claims pertaining to Half.com's software was the major reason for eBay's plan to jettison the site. Clearly it was an issue. Maybe it was more a desire to strengthen the core eBay name that motivated the earlier decision. Whatever, someone finally looked at the sales at Half and the seller loyalty, and decided not to detach the milking machine from the cash cow. We can't say for certain that the decision is permanent. However, they do say, "There will be no substantive changes to Half.com in the foreseeable future," and, "Going forward, we will invest in both platforms" (Half and eBay). Sounds like Half.com will be sticking around awhile.
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A Renewed "Half Life"
Half.com Lives
- By Michael Stillman
When Half could not find the "Expedition" for sale on its site, it found a copy on eBay instead.
Now that Half has been raised from the dead, we figured it was worth a look. Over the past two months we have been reviewing many of the bookselling sites. In September we looked at the largest sites, such as Amazon, Abe, Alibris and B&N. Last month we added a few smaller sites plus responded to some comments. For this most recent review, and a link to the first, see www.americanaexchange.com/NewAE/aemonthly/article.asp?f=1&page=1&id=191
First, a few ground rules. We have approached the sites as a consumer. We recognize that most of our readers are sellers, but ultimately, the ability of a site to sell your books depends on how easy it is to use and how understandable it is to the consumer. Besides, being a consumer allows us to be critical, obnoxious, irrational, stupid and offensive, and still be right. In other words, we can be ourselves. Secondly, we are approaching the sites as a collector. That means a site, which may be ideal for someone looking for a "reading copy," particularly something that might be only five or ten years old, is not going to be an ideal site for our purposes. We are collectors, not readers. If we wanted to read, we would go to the library, or Barnes and Noble, read the book, put it back on the shelf, and leave.
We may have already stacked the deck against poor Half.com with that second condition, but first let's look at the site. When you type "www.half.com" into your browser, you are immediately redirected to "half.ebay.com." The logo says "half.com by ebay." There will be plenty of reminders of this connection along the way. One of the nice things for people interested in books is it is obvious that books are a major part of this site. I see books offered in the middle of the page, books and subcategories to the left, a books tab at the top of the page, and "bargain bins" of books to the right. All of this is visible without ever having to scroll down the page. At times, books can seem almost an afterthought at Amazon these days. At Half.com, they have a prominent role.
To get deeper into the category of books, I click one of the "Books" links, which takes me to a page with a group of new books they would like me to buy, a listing of many subcategories of "books" to try, a link to the bargain bin, and a search box with an "Advanced Search" link. They don't offer anything that clearly covers the type of books I want, but they do provide a link to "Antiquarian on eBay." A few clicks later I'm into the heart of antiquarian and collectible books on eBay, but that's for another day. Right now I want to see what Half.com has.
A click on the "Advanced Search" link brings me to a search page that is advanced in name only. All you can search is title and author, and limit results to hardcover, paperback or audiobook. None of the fields like date, publisher, printing location, which enable you to better target a search, are offered, nor is there an ability to search the description for keywords corresponding to your interests. Either you know the title and/or author or forget it. I'm disappointed.
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A Renewed "Half Life"
Half.com Lives
- By Michael Stillman
Half.com found copies of this "Expedition" for sale on its site, it found a copy on eBay instead.
For my first search, I try a book of which I have absolutely no expectation of finding, the official History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis & Clark... from 1812. As a result, I'm quite surprised when the title comes up. Not surprisingly, I'm told that the book "is currently out of stock." A little more examination reveals that they never anticipated having the original, valued in six figures, but are out of stock on the 1973 reprint. Conveniently, both for me and them, they provide a search link to eBay. But eBay doesn't have it either.
Next I try Rudyard Kipling's With the Night Mail. This is a good test book as it is a century old, not that rare, but was rarely reprinted. It's a book that's easy to find on sites like Abebooks, but none are available on Half. So I move on to Howard Stansbury's 1852 Expedition to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, expecting to find nothing, only to be surprised. A search by the author's name finds no copies of his "Expedition," but does find a 1988 Smithsonian reprint of his Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. A list price $24.95 item, I find copies as low as $0.98! Not bad. I compare that to Abebooks, where the cheapest copy, even of this reprint, is $4.00. Half's $2.79 shipping does raise the cost to $3.77, but Abe wants $3.50 shipping for a total of $7.50. Half.com may not have won me over as a place to look for collectible books, but if I'm looking for more recent reading copies, I know who's going to be on the top of my list.
I go back and refine my search to include both the author's name and title for "Expedition," and get nothing, but if I enter just the title, Half tells me of a copy available on eBay right now. As said before, this is convenient, but there's a glitch in this search. On the eBay listing, the title was listed in the title field, but the author's name was in the description. However, the default search is only of the title field. So when I filled in both the title and author boxes on the Half.com search page, it sent both over to eBay, searched for both in the title field, and did not find any listings with the author's name in the title field, so it told me my book was not available on eBay. But, it was. When I only entered the title at Half (without the author), it found a match with the title at eBay. The lesson is if you're selling on eBay, include the author's name in the "title" field. More Half.com customers will find you.
Finally, I did a search of Death is Natural by Laurence Pringle, a 1977 children's book designed either to reassure them about death or give them nightmares. This is not a very "collectible" book. Depending on whether I wanted a first edition or reprint, hardcover or soft, Half.com offered copies for $1.10-$1.30. At Abe, the lowest price was $1.80. I know that's not a lot of money on an absolute basis, but on a percentage basis, the difference is substantial. Amazon was closer on this title, with a low price of $1.24, while Barnes and Noble's low was $2.07 and Alibris $2.95.
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A Renewed "Half Life"
Half.com Lives
- By Michael Stillman
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Now that we've established Half's strength, here are a few more examples. They have a list of books which they ask you to rate for interest so they can make personal recommendations. Instead, let's rate them for price. How about the 1992 "classic" Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Really? I thought Martians were from Mars. I have absolutely no interest in buying this book, and that's a shame. The reason is that Half has a copy for just $0.75. The lowest I can find on Amazon is $1.89, Barnes and Noble $1.99, Alibris $2.95, and Abe $1.00 (though they have 68 copies available at that price). When I try another $0.75 Half book, The Andromeda Strain, and mostly find the same prices, I realize that these were mainly minimum prices. Only Amazon, at $1.50, changes, while Abe now has 115 copies available for $1.00. Score two for Half.com.
Tuesdays With Morrie is another score for Half. Just $1.30. Barnes and Noble wants $1.99, Alibris $2.95, Abe $3.00, and Amazon $4.99. However, Half.com is not always the cheapest. They want $4.81 for the cheapest copy available of Pearl Buck's Good Earth. Abe has six copies for $1.00, Amazon wants $1.57, Barnes and Noble $2.96, and Alibris, as always, wants $2.95. This time, "Half.com" should be called "Twice.com."
Everything has its place. Half.com has its place. If you sell only serious books, "serious" being a synonym for "expensive," Half.com is not the place to list. I don't know if Men are from Mars or Tuesdays with Morrie will ever be collectible, but certainly not in my lifetime. This is not a site for collectible books, rare books, antiquarian books, or any other type of pricey books. It is a site for books you want to read and don't care what edition it is, who printed it, when it was printed, or whether it is in "fine" condition. In fact, for this, it is a very good site. I'm glad eBay decided to keep it alive. I hope it survives long enough to still be around when Men are from Mars is considered a collectible classic, though that will be a sad day indeed.
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