Book and media marketplace Alibris has expanded its new service that provides sellers of new and used books with cataloging and fulfillment services. Alibris Distribution Services (ADS) is a book fulfillment service for independent U.S. sellers who exceed their operations capacity, have more inventory than they'll ever catalog, or want to liquidate large amounts of new and used books.

Alibris began piloting the program in late 2007, and it has been open to the public since the spring of 2008. In its first year, participating sellers have sent more than one million books through the program.

ADS books are listed on Alibris, Alibris U.K., Alibris for Libraries, and business-partner sites such as Amazon sites, Barnes & Noble, Borders, eBay, and Half.com. Books are shipped to the Alibris distribution center, where they are cataloged and warehoused until they are sold on behalf of participating sellers.

As a consignment-based program, Alibris charges $0.99 for accepted items and pays sellers 70 percent of the sales price when they are sold. There are no additional processing, fulfillment, storage, or seasonal fees. ADS also covers up to the full shipping cost of moving books from the seller to the Alibris distribution center, depending on shipment size and distance. There is no additional charge for processing returned items.

Alibris prices books daily, according to current market conditions, "keeping them competitively priced for sellers and appealing to customers," according to the company.

http://www.alibris.com