AbeBooks audit profile, Vortex IQ

What the Vortex IQ AbeBooks health audit checks: AbeBooks: FTPS Feed Health, Listing Visibility & Cross-Platform ISBN Leak

Nerve Centre KPIs · Audit Profile · Sentiment Settings

AbeBooks is a used / rare-book reseller marketplace served entirely over FTPS (no real-time API). Audits cover FTPS connectivity + feed-cycle health, listing visibility (suspended, pending, stale, missing-ISBN), order fulfilment SLA (the seller-rating signal that drives AbeBooks account standing), pricing / margin watch on rare titles, and cross-platform ISBN comparisons against Alibris + Amazon book listings to surface drift, missing-on-AbeBooks ISBNs, and channel-mix imbalance for book-trade merchants.

What this audit checks

Authentication & connectivity

• FTPS login on ftp.abebooks.com:21 succeeds (220 -> AUTH TLS -> 230)
• Explicit AUTH TLS upgrade negotiated correctly (no plain-FTP fallback)
• TLS server certificate verifies (verify_peer is on)
• Passive-mode data channel opens on the merchant’s egress
• Drop folders /inbox + /outbox readable / writable for the merchant’s username
• Time skew between merchant clock and AbeBooks server <5 min (TLS sanity)

Listing-feed health

• Last successful /outbox/listings upload <48h (any older = feed blind)
• Failed batches in /inbox/acks (any > 0 = rows AbeBooks rejected)
• Top error patterns clustered from inbound ack files (drives ‘fix once’ bug list)
• ISBN coverage <90% (untracked listings can’t cross-reference Alibris / Amazon)
• Stale listings >180d no update >10% of catalogue
• Suspended / pending listings >0 (direct revenue blocker)

Order-feed health

• Inbound /inbox/orders file lag >12h (probable upstream incident)
• Pending dispatch >2x 30D average (back-office backlog)
• Avg time to process >24h
• Late dispatches past dispatch_due_by >5% of 30D orders (account-standing risk)
• Cancellation rate >3%
• Return rate >5% (book-trade tolerates some, watch for grading drift on used stock)

Cost & efficiency

• Commission paid % of revenue drift vs prior 90D
• Avg dispatch hours rising trend (fulfilment cost creep)
• Per-condition margin: like_new / very_good vs acceptable mix shift
• AOV drop with no volume drop (mix shift to lower-condition stock)

Cross-platform: leak vs Alibris + Amazon (the killer area)

• ISBN drift - same ISBN, AbeBooks vs Alibris vs Amazon price delta >15%
• Top-50 Alibris / Amazon book-revenue ISBNs not listed on AbeBooks (cheapest revenue lift)
• AbeBooks price >15% below merchant’s own DTC list on like_new / very_good first editions (margin erosion)
• Channel mix anomaly: AbeBooks share of book-trade revenue dropping >25% WoW vs sibling book marketplaces
• Outbound feed cycle desync: same SKU updated on Alibris but no AbeBooks /outbox/listings upload in 7d

Severity thresholds

Signal	Warn	Critical
hours_since_last_successful_upload	24	48
failed_batch_count_7d	1	5
isbn_coverage_pct	90	80
suspended_listings_count	1	5
stale_listings_pct	5	10
inbound_orders_file_lag_hours	6	12
pending_dispatch_multiplier	1.5	2
avg_time_to_process_hours	18	24
late_dispatch_pct	3	5
cancellation_rate_pct	2	3
return_rate_pct	4	5
isbn_drift_count	5	10
missing_on_abebooks_count	3	5
rare_book_floor_violation_count	1	5

Data sources

• GET ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/inbox/orders/ - Download daily order files for SLA + revenue audits.
• GET ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/inbox/acks/ - Read upload acks + processed-with-errors reports for feed-health audit.
• GET ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/inbox/returns/ - Return + refund notifications for return-rate audit.
• PUT ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/outbox/listings/ - Upload-cycle telemetry source - confirmed-vs-rejected counts drive feed health.
• PUT ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/outbox/price/ - Price delta uploads - per-batch ack timing.
• PUT ftps://ftp.abebooks.com:21/outbox/quantity/ - Quantity-only uploads - fast availability updates.