Alibris is an online store that sells new books, used books, out-of-print books, rare books, and other media through an online network of independent booksellers.

History

Martin Manley Martin Manley (born August 27, 1952) is an American entrepreneur and politician, who currently serves as the Executive Director Hult International Business School's San Francisco Campus. Manley previously served as US Assistant Secretary of Labo ...

founded Alibris in 1997 with the team behind early online book marketplace Interloc, which Alibris purchased. Interloc was founded by book seller Richard Weatherford, programmer Tom Sawyer and computer tech Brad Councilman in 1994. Interloc was one of the earliest successful efforts to centralize used book data online. It remained a private network until 1996, when the company launched its website built in Thunderstone Texis by Senior Engineer Michael Warchut. The Alibris website was launched on October 23, 1998 at 14:30PM EST also built by Michael Warchut. Alibris was incorporated in 1998. Alibris acquired Bibliocity in October 1999. The company was backed by venture capital until 2006, when it was purchased by Oak Hill Capital Partners, a

private equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...

. In February 2010, Oak Hill Capital Partners bought Monsoon and merged it with Alibris with Monsoon Commerce owning Alibris. As of February 2017, Alibris was owned by AM Holding Inc. (formerly Monsoon Commerce Inc.) In 2017 Alibris Holding sold off Monsoon Commerce of Portland and Stonegde Technologies of Collegeville, PA, and Alibris was subsequently sold in June 2017 to a private investor. The company remains privately owned.

Company

Booksellers list their inventories on Alibris which in turn offers the books on its retail website, a separate library services site, and business-to-business partners such as

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 ...

Half Price Books Half Price Books, Records, Magazines, Incorporated is a chain of new and used bookstores in the United States. The company's original motto is "We buy and sell anything printed or recorded except yesterday's newspaper", and many of the used book ...

, and

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

. It also offers services in the UK through the Alibris.co.uk website. It offers more than 250 million books from a network of over 6000 booksellers in 65 countries. Most sales made through Alibris are fulfilled by the bookseller directly to the end customer. Sales to libraries or other institutions or books needing transoceanic shipping are consolidated in a distribution center in

Sparks, Nevada Sparks is a city in Washoe County, Nevada, United States. It was founded in 1904, incorporated on March 15, 1905, and is located just east of Reno. The 2020 U.S. Census counted 108,445 residents in the city. It is the fifth most populous city i ...

. Alibris also has a similar network for music (

albums An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records col ...

cassette tapes The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Otte ...

, and CDs) and movies ( VHS or DVD). Alibris allows customers to buy and sell at the same time. Alibris charges a starting fee that varies based on what is being sold and what kind of commission is charged. Alibris was a charter member of the

Google eBooks Google Play Books, formerly Google eBooks, is an ebook digital distribution service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. Users can purchase and download ebooks and audiobooks from Google Play, which offers over five million ...

service when it was announced by Google on December 6, 2010.

References

External links

* * * {{cite journal , url= http://www.bookthink.com/0074/74ali1.htm , title= Putting A Face on Faceless Venues: An Interview with Alibris' A.J. Kohn , first= Catherine , last= Petruccione , journal= Book Thinker , format= Newsletter , issue= 74 , date= Aug 7, 2006 , url-status= live , archive-date= June 7, 2007 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070607144202/http://www.bookthink.com/0074/74ali1.htm Bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area Book selling websites Music retailers of the United States Online retailers of the United States Online film databases Product searching websites Companies based in Emeryville, California American companies established in 1997 Bookstores established in the 20th century Retail companies established in 1997 1997 establishments in California Comparison shopping websites

History

Company

See also

References

External links