1996 ; 20 years ago 1996 headquarters victoria british columbia canada area served worldwide products books collectibles ephemera used books out of print books rare books and textbooks homebase 3.0 services online shopping parent amazon.com subsidiaries fillz bookfinder librarything.com website abebooks.com abebooks is an e commerce global online marketplace with seven national domains that offers books collectible art and ephemera from sellers in 50 countries . on august 1 2008 amazon acquired abebooks . 1 contents 1 history 2 most expensive sales 3 searchable inventory 4 sellers 5 websites 6 sources 7 references history edit reverse chronology in 2016 arkady vitrouk was appointed ceo . 2 he was previously the director of kindle content in amazon s european headquarters in luxembourg . prior to joining amazon he was the ceo of the azbooka atticus publishing group in russia . as of oct 2016 abebooks is headquartered in victoria british columbia canada with its european office in d sseldorf germany . the company manages regional websites for north america france germany italy the uk and spain . more than 250 millions products are listed for sale . most books listed are used many are rare signed 1st editions or out of print and a growing number are new . in 2011 abebooks acquired zvab.com de a worldwide marketplace for german rare books with professional booksellers in 27 countries offering customers millions of used antiquarian and out of print books . in 2010 abebooks launched the abebooks channel program in may to provide its booksellers with the opportunity to list their books for sale on amazon.com . the channel program was permanently closed on june 16 2014 . in 2008 abebooks was named one of bc s top employers by mediacorp canada inc. in october which was announced by the vancouver sun the province and the victoria times colonist . 3 in 2012 abebooks was again named one of british columbia s top employers by mediacorp . in 2008 abebooks announced that it would be acquired by amazon.com on the 1st of august . the deal gave amazon.com a stake in both librarything via abebooks 40 % owning and competitor shelfari in which amazon.com had invested separately . 1 in 2008 abebooks was awarded the british columbia technology industry association impact award 4 in june for leadership in social responsibility for its charitable activities literacy initiatives and commitment to environmental friendliness in its business practices . in 2008 abebooks acquired chrislands in april a company that hosts websites for over 1000 booksellers . 5 in may 2013 abebooks sold chrislands back to one of its original founders jaymes sorbel . in 2006 abebooks purchased a 40 per cent stake in librarything in may a social networking and book cataloging website for bibliophiles . 6 in 2006 abebooks acquired fillz in february a book inventory and order management company . 7 in 2005 abebooks acquired bookfinder.com in november an american book price comparison metasearch shopping service site . 8 in 2004 abebooks purchased iberlibro.com in octorber and its inventory was integrated into the abebooks database in december 2006 . in 2004 abebooks expanded its model to include new books and acquired the spanish company iberlibro to better serve spanish language markets . in 2002 the founding partners were bought out by german media company hubert burda media . in 2001 abebooks acquired germany s justbooks gmbh online book marketplace which helped the company expand into the german french and british online bookselling markets . from the late 1990s to 2005 abebooks had reseller agreements with ebay half.com barnes & noble.com biblioz.com and amazon.com allowing abebooks to market and sell booksellers books through those channels ; these agreements were dissolved in 2005 . abebooks currently only has a reseller agreement with amazon.com . in 1995 abebooks was founded by rick and vivian pura and keith and cathy waters . it was incorporated in 1995 and launched its websites in 1996 initially including listings for only four bookstores . most expensive sales edit abebooks is also known as an online marketplace where rare and collectible items changed hands . in february 2015 abebooks recorded the most expensive sales ever at the time a rare ornithology book was sold online in abebooks for 191 000 . 9 the website periodically reports their recent high value sales . 10 searchable inventory edit abebooks users can search across the listings of many independent bookstores thereby allowing small independent players to compete with bookselling superstores . some of the member bookstores offer their books online only while others also maintain a regular storefront . booksellers upload their inventory data to the abebooks database specifying information about each book including condition and price . prices are fixed with us 1 being the minimum and there are no auctions . items available range from the extremely common where there might be hundreds of copies listed to truly unique manuscript material worth thousands of dollars . in addition to books magazines audio books journals illustration art vintage photographs and paper ephemera are offered . sellers edit sellers pay a monthly subscription to list their books on the site ranging from 25 to 300 depending on how many books they list . this subscription fee has been in place since at least april 2008 . in addition sellers pay a percentage fee for each book sold via the websites . 11 abebooks initially offered its services for a flat listings fee based on the number of titles listed for sale . the model was changed in the early 2000s to include a commission on sales . in april 2006 abebooks started mandatory processing of mastercard and visa credit card transactions on behalf of its sellers and added a 5.5 % charge for the provision of this service previously this service had been optional . in 2008 abebooks started charging a commission of 13.5 % on the cost of postage as well as the book price . currently 2013 the commission charge is set at 8 % of postage and book price . sellers can within limits set their own standard postage rates to various countries or by different carriers . booksellers can upload their inventory using their own spreadsheet software or via the site s interface . items that sell are mailed directly from the individual bookseller s location . some booksellers have new books directly mailed from wholesalers or publishers . while abebooks is arguably the largest such site most booksellers who list on abebooks also list their books on multiple similar marketplaces such as amazon.com biblio.com half.com etc. websites edit abebooks s localized storefronts which differ in selection and prices are differentiated by top level domain and country code regions sites united states abebooks.com germany zvab.com germany abebooks.de france abebooks.fr italy abebooks.it spain iberlibro.com canada abebooks.ca australia abebooks.com books anz other websites include fillz.com bookfinder.com and librarything.com . sources edit company profile . abebooks.com company information . retrieved 2006 04 03 . radio interview with richard davies of abebooks.com on read first ask later ep . 14 references edit a b amazon to acquire abebooks arkady vitrouk s linkedin profile . reasons for selection 2009 bc s top employers competition . 2008 tia award winners . bctia . retrieved on 07 11 08 . steiner ina 10 april 2008 . bookselling marketplace abebooks aquires sic chrislands . auctionbytes . retrieved 21 june 2011 . steiner ina 2006 05 17 . abebooks.com buys social networking site librarything.com . auctionbytes . retrieved 2008 03 21 . steiner ina 2006 03 02 . abebooks acquires fillz service for selling books online . auctionbytes . retrieved 2008 03 21 . needle david 2005 11 07 . book sites unite . internet news . retrieved 2007 10 30 . http www.abebooks.com rare books most expensive sales ever.shtml http www.abebooks.com rare books most expensive sales jan feb mar 2016 . shtml help.abebooks.com how much does it cost to sell on abebooks and how does abebooks pay me v t e amazon.com people current jeff bezos tony hsieh christopher north werner vogels gregg zehr former rick dalzell brian mcbride david risher ram shriram tom szkutak brian valentine facilities amazon tower i amazon tower ii products and services websites a9.com abebooks alexa internet amapedia askville bookfinder cdnow china curse the book depository dash diapers.com digital photography review endless.com fresh goodreads internet movie database box office mojo withoutabox junglee.com local marketplace payments planetall shelfari twitch.tv wireless woot.com zappos web services ami cloudfront dynamodb ebs ec2 mturk product advertising api rds s3 ses simpledb sqs vpc silk glacier storywriter digital alexa appstore audible inc. comixology amazon drive echo video prime kindle kindle fire fire hd fire hdx fire tv fire phone kindle store lexcycle lovefilm mobipocket music reflexive entertainment fire os amazon digital game store technology 1 click carbonado dynamo gurupa lab126 double helix games obidos liquavista publishing amazon publishing amazon studios breakthrough novel award best books of the year kindle direct publishing investments 43 things amie street songza librarything livingsocial sellaband other amazon books amazon light asin controversies tax fishbowl locker perfect 10 inc. v. amazon.com inc. statistically improbable phrase vine list of amazon.com locations list of mergers and acquisitions by amazon.com list of amazon.com products and services retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title abebooks & oldid 744600686 categories bookstores of canadaproduct searching websitescanadian brandsamazon.com acquisitionsbook selling websitescomparison shopping websitesonline retailers of canadahidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersinterlanguage link template link number 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