Amazon.com Acquires AbeBooks

On Monday, Amazon.com completed its acquisition of the Canadian rare book dealer AbeBooks. The takeover was originally announced in August.

The giant online retailer promises that AbeBooks will continue doing what it's been doing since 1996 -- selling books online that wouldn't otherwise be easy to find. According to Amazon's press release, AbeBooks lists "over 110 million primarily used, rare and out-of-print books listed for sale by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world."

The two companies aren't new to each other. "We've worked with AbeBooks for quite some time," says Amazon PR Manager Tammy Hovey. "We've had a long-working relationship in the past."

While Amazon doesn't sell used books directly, it does act as a middleman for third-party retailers, and customers can browse third-party inventory from Amazon product pages. AbeBooks' listings have been appearing on Amazon for years, and Hovey says that the relationship won't change much. "AbeBooks will continue to operate as stand-alone business," she assured us. In addition, when a customer buys a book on Amazon that's actually coming from AbeBooks, the purchase "will still appear with Abebooks as the seller."

In other words, an Abebooks purchase won't contribute to the $25 needed for free shipping on an Amazon.com order.

In addition, the acquisition thins the ranks of independent merchants. On the Internet, as is so often the case in the brick-and-mortar world, there will be one less independently-owned bookstore.