Requesting Extra Charges

**My sincere thanks to everyone who has joined this discussion. Please see my follow-up post for the latest updates.**

A bookseller copied me today on a complaint he sent to Abebooks. The gist of the problem was this. A customer ordered a book, and the dealer requested extra charges for shipping since the book was heavy. This happened over a weekend and the customer was out of email contact for a few days. Four days elapsed, and Abebooks cancelled the order automatically. The customer, thinking the book was not available, bought a copy from someone else.

I completely sympathize with the dealer's anger at the lost sale. I'm in business for myself, too. I don't like it when we lose a subscriber or have an advertiser buy space in another venue.

But I also think that the "extra charges" feature is plain bad business. We live in a world of one-click ordering online, and when book buyers place an order, they reasonably expect that they are going to get the book in the mail. They do not expect to get an email asking for more money. From the customer's perspective, that feels like a bait-and-switch routine. I quote you one price to get you to buy and then charge you more when you actually do.

And I don't understand why it is that booksellers even need to add extra shipping. I mean, didn't they know it was heavy when they listed the book online? Why wasn't that factored into the price?

The same goes for sales tax. Here's what one dealer adds to all his/her listings: CA RESIDENTS MUST INCLUDE CA STATE SALES TAX OR SUBMIT A COMPLETE CURRENT RESALE LICENSE WITH SAME NAME BEFORE SHIPMENT. I can only interpret that as hostility toward the customer, and when I saw that and assumed I would get hit with an extra charges request, I didn't buy the book.

Such practices make the book trade look unprofessional.

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In response to an anonymous comment, I should make it clear that I do not think paying sales tax is unprofessional. We collect sales tax in three states, and it's a real pain, let me assure you. But, yes, going back to a customer after they've checked out to ask for sales tax is unprofessional. It would be nice if the listing sites added tax like eBay does, but most of them don't.

Comments

[Guest]

"The same goes for sales tax...Such practices make the book trade look unprofessional."

Are you seriously suggesting that charging sales tax gives the appearance of being unprofessional?

[MatthewB]

In hundreds of ABE orders over the years, I can't recall a single U.S. dealer asking for extra money for shipping. It's happened with only a couple of European sellers, and I can't really blame them, since overseas shipping charges vary wildly and even nonsensically. With U.S. dealers, it would indeed feel like a bait-and-switch -- the shipping price for each book is listed right there!

[jgodsey]

your post sounds as if you are blaming the bookseller for these errors in professionalism. Whereas we must play with by the rules set by ABE. these are options that should be factored INTO the checkout options and not left up to the vendors booksellers to play catch up. If ABE insists on processing the orders completely and collecting their tithe, then these are issues THEY should be addressing.

[Ian J. Kahn]

As much as I love you guys, I must disagree on this issue. ABE has, in mandating that they process certain cards, forced this annoying "shipping increase" process. A bookseller can not set shipping cost on a per book basis, but rather as a matrix setting (that is, all books being shipped media mail are $x.xx). This is fine as you choose a rational lowest common denominator and cross your fingers. The problem, of course, is that the shipping for an average modern lit trade edition is very different from the shipping for a folio art volume. This doesn't even count what insurance can add to the problem (e.g. I "build in" the $0.65 for insurance up to $100ish, but the insurance for a $1000 book is *signficantly* higher).

These issues become much more pronounced when shipping overseas. I just shipped a single volume to Brazil...my matrix price for airmail to South America is $20...but the shipping (and insurance) for this volume was $42. Are you suggesting that I eat a $22 "loss" in this case (I could not request the increase, as I had already accepted the order (and, thus, could not change anything)...luckily the buyer had no problem and we processed the extra shipping as a seperate charge.

I completely agree that shipping increases should be kept to a minimum. The easiest way to do this is to price shipping RATIONALLY. Part of the problem for many, I think is that they try to keep their shipping so low that they effectively loose money with every book they ship (especially true when selling $1-20 books).

I think a lot of the "problem" has arisen since ABE started their manditory processing of Visa/MC. Adjusting shipping when needed used to be very easy, as I would simply touch base with the client before processing the charge. It is now a convoluted process that is annoying to both dealers and customers (I will, however, note that while I do adjust shipping on nearly all foreign orders and a handful of domestic, I have not lost a sale over it). I'll probably blather about this issue a bit more over at my blog...it is a very interesting issue (admittedly, interesting to a narrow, geeky sliver of us).

This is the silliest comment I've seen on this issue. We can't absorb the sales tax because ABE refuses to collect it, and our terms clearly state that it is due where applicable.

Your subscription renewal form is on my desk. I have subscribed since the first issue but anyone that shows such a ludicrous misunderstanding of the issues doesn't, I'm afraid, have a a magazine worth subscribing to, and I will not be renewing. The perils of blogging, I guess.

[joslinhall]

While I agree that coming back after a customer for extra money for sales tax can look unprofessional, the fault in many cases lies with the selling sites, not the dealers.

In Massachusetts, for instance, it is against the law for a seller to "absorb" sales tax (i.e., not charge it, but rather figure it into the price of the book) for the customer- if I sell a book to a Massachusetts resident and the bookselling site I sold it through does not have a system in place to collect the sales tax, I am put in the position of either asking for it afterward, or breaking the law. Under such circumstances I think that calling a dealer "unprofessional" for merely complying with state law is going too far. It would be better to point out that the bookselling site is acting unprofessionally in not taking such basic considerations into account.

[Parker]

It is not normal to order something, pay for it, wait a few days, then be told "you owe us some more money".

The extra charge in my case was because the book was "heavier than average". But that is no excuse - I very much doubt it got heavier since the bookseller listed it.

I completely agree with the blogger on this issue and I am pretty sure there are consumer protection laws that prohibit changing the price after the sale.

Booksellers sort out your issues with Abebooks and not with customers.