https://www.theartofbooks.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1260373532/3

Just found out they have some new and extremely obnoxious policies.

I always liked selling there, but am switching to amazon; it just sounds nuts.

I pulled my half.com bookshelf when I started here on pbs in the fall.  Never gotten much traffic from them anyway. 

And to put my 12+ year Ebay account at risk because of stupid, lazy and inaccurate stuff on half.com is NOT going to happen. 

Thanks for the heads up

Jan

I don't have much listed at Half.com, only 5 or 6 books.  I despise Amazon and its business practices more so I will stick with Half.  I have nothing listed at Ebay and haven't sold there for a couple of years now.  Don't plan to go back to selling on Ebay either, they've changed it so much so everything's stacked in the buyer's favor if there's a dispute.  Even if the buyer's flat out wrong.

I don't have any listings on there anymore, but I've always thought the automated stuff there was glitchy, so it doesn't surprise me that they've put something else in place that's causing a lot of headaches for sellers.  In some respects, it was very easy to use, but it never was perfect.

I don't sell on Half.com (or anywhere really).  But I read this anyway because I've been interested in selling instead of trading on PBS.  But it's stuff like this and various complaints about the online sellers that keep from doing it and just keep me trading   on PBS-even though my TBR is out of control and I would rather have cash for some of my books.  It just doesn't seem worth the agravation that all these sites put you through.

Thanks for posting the link, Willa. I used to sell a half.com and was thinking of going back there but I'm not going to jeopardize my eBay account (buyer only).  I like it here far more than I did there.

Gail

You can have more than one Ebay account.  I have 3 or 4.  Sell (or used to sell) on one and I buy on another.  I'd never jeopardize my selling reputation by buying on that same account.

TY, Willa, for the heads up. I do have lotsa books posted on half.com. Some have been there for 2+ years but since it costs me nothing to list, it costs me nothing to leave them there.

Their keyword-combing bot is nothing new. They've got the same thing going on eBay. As a seller, it's frustrating, but as a buyer, I appreciate not having "like new" come up in search results for "new" and other situations where sellers don't realize they are not helping buyers with their descriptions. eBay just cancels the offending listing, but apparently, half.com suspends the user.

If I worked for half.com, I'd probably do the same. It seems the majority of the sellers on half.com have hundreds of books listed and they duplicate information in their descriptions. How many times have I seen "like new" books that "may have a remainder mark"? :-P  There are lots of half.com sellers who sell books they don't have. When you see a seller who sells from multiple locations (ML), you're looking at a listing by a seller who will buy the book from another seller after they sell it to you (I've had this happen often -- they'll request that I not include a packing slip, price info, or a return address). Sounds like half.com is just trying to keep house a little better and hopefully, improve their reputation with buyers.

After reading the thread you've linked to in the OP, I went through my listings which I had rated very good. Many of them included descriptions of the minor flaws, followed with the statement "otherwise like new." They now list the minor flaws followed by "otherwise clean."

I, too, have a seller account on eBay that I don't want to jeopardize. But since I've always been very conservative in rating book condition and have removed red flag keywords, I think it's a good thing they are working to improve buyer confidence.

Colleen

I only had 6 books out there and I think I may have some of those bad words in my description. So rather that take a chance on losing my account, I just deleted them all. It was not that big of deal to me to sell on there, but I would have been very upset not to be able to buy something. I have been buying off of half since the midninties.

I have done well with half.com, but I'm not going to risk it...I posted some books on Amazon, so we shall see.  Thanks for the heads up.