a1_books (37000)  

Fast Company Makes a Run at Top Slot
"We are still very new on eBay," says Shinu Gupta of a1Books. This hasn't stopped them from achieving great sales quickly, however. Though they have been registered on eBay only since May 2004, their Feedback Score has already reached 30,000, and their sights are set on even greater success. "There is more for us to learn," Shinu notes, "but the goal for us to be the largest bookseller on eBay."

One of the largest sellers on Half.com, Shinu's biggest concern with the transition to eBay was being able to list huge volumes of items. "The key is automation. When eBay phased out Half.com, they provided Bulk Catalog Lister (BCL)." That was a critical piece that enabled A1Books' move, according to Shinu.

"We started over at zero feedback," says Shinu. But in 10 months, they hit 30,000 with a 98.2% positive rating and PowerSeller status. "I would say we have excellent support from eBay. Our account managers are on top of what's going on and are always responsive."

Keys to Success
With 429,000 items listed currently, visibility is very important for getting online browsers to find A1Books. As an Anchor Store , they have premier placement on eBay Stores pages and elsewhere on the site. Once customers arrive, they find A1Books' well-branded site with custom categories and custom pages that promote specials and bestsellers.

With their own programmers, A1Books developed its own java scripts for uploading listings and managing follow-through, including automated downloads from PayPal. "We have a very good relationship with PayPal ," Shinu notes.

A1Books' stock is not sold on eBay alone. They are in several sales channels online and off. "We started the business in 1994," Shinu explains, "and we have about 40 people on staff including full-time and part-time employees. We have a small store, too. We were one of the first online bookstores--we started even before Amazon."

Besides multiple sales channels, A1Books is also using a cross-category strategy. Long-time sellers of DVDs and movies, they are now expanding into consumer electronics as well as packing supplies.

Best Practices
With so much volume, Shinu finds it most effective to use Store Inventory format for nearly all listings. Keeping a huge variety of products available and competitively priced as Buy It Now listings helped them ramp up business as quickly as they have. Shipping within 48 hours of payment and letting people check the status of their orders online keeps the positive feedback coming. A new customer service team in India now supports eBay customers as well.

International Trading may be a next step for Shinu: "We are planning to do more on eBay U.K., eBay Germany and eBay Canada. We would probably not ship from the U.S. to those countries, but we have relationships with local vendors who could ship within the country."

Parting Thoughts
"As I said, our goal is to be the largest seller in terms of the number of items listed. My goal is to look at what other people are doing and find distributors in those lines who can drop ship. We are purely a technology house. We don't stock or ship. We plan to use our technology to get into other product lines that do well on eBay."

"I would also like to meet Meg [Whitman, eBay's CEO] one day," says Shinu. "I'm very new to the community and have not attended any meetings or classes, but I hope one day I will be able to share my experiences with smaller sellers and help them out."

Share your experiences with other eBay sellers! Submit testimonials and story ideas to inthefield@ebay.com and include "In the Field" in the subject line. (Idea submissions are non-proprietary and non-confidential. eBay assumes no obligation with respect to such submissions.)