Bookselling site Biblio is raising its selling fees as of January 1, 2025. “This is bad news,” a reader shared with EcommerceBytes. For those unfamiliar with the site, it describes itself as follows:
“BIBLIO is a marketplace where thousands of independent booksellers list their new, used, rare, and out of print books for sale. We host the website and secure payment methods and provide customer service, while the bookshops around the world are the ones who package and send your books! In short, when you place an order through BIBLIO, you are supporting independent businesses.”
Beginning January 1, 2025, Biblio’s option A selling plan will include a flat monthly fee of $5, and its option B plan will see an increase of $5 to its monthly fees, ranging from $15 per month to $30 per month, with a maximum monthly fee of $500. All other fees and commissions will remain the same.
In its letter to sellers, Biblio pointed out the growing complexity of dealing with regulations in the US and internationally. It handles VAT/GST reporting and payments on sellers’ behalf in the EU, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and collects and remits sales tax in 47 US states. “We have also had to adapt to help sellers comply with new recycling and packaging requirements in Germany and France. More nations are expected to follow suit in the coming couple of years. Additionally, US and EU marketplace regulatory reporting requirements have increased, requiring us to build new systems to gather and report required information.”
The seller said Biblio already takes out fees on the price of item and shipping and also charge credit card processing fees and said, “This is just another insult to small booksellers who are already struggling just to sell a small number of books each month on Biblio.”
EcommerceBytes readers had discussed various bookselling sites in a thread in 2022 in response to a seller looking for advice on places to sell old and rare books, sharing thoughts on sales – and comparing fees at the time.
