AbeBooks is removing ebooks from their marketplace

I never heard of this company but I think the move is stupid. Ebooks is the future not physical books

I’ve been using Abebooks since I was in college in the mid-1990s. Abebooks is IMO the best source of used books on the Internet. The site itself doesn’t maintain an inventory like Amazon, you buy used books from sellers like the Amazon marketplace. Instead of reaching a very limited number of people using their own website, Abebooks IMO allows used bookstores to reach people who have never heard of the store because they don’t live in the area.

I’m not surprised this happened because Amazon has all but put people who sell stuff using Seller Central out of business in the past six months or so. They’ve restricted a ton of categories, including “new” and popular physical books, DVDs, CDs, video games, etc. To sell in these categories a seller has to prove they’re an authorized reseller of a corporation’s products. In the past few weeks I’ve tried to sell a used video game (completely legit, I think I even bought it from Amazon lol) and a laptop only to find out I’m “not approved” to sell in those categories despite the fact I’ve sold multiple items in both categories before. Apparently, over the last year an increasing number of corporations have pressured Amazon to stop the “wild west” selling of products.

In this case, I think it’s probably a good move. Every time I saw a digital file on sale on Abebooks it was really sketchy as to whether it was legit or if it was some sort of bootlegged copy.