Alibris audit profile, Vortex IQ

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

Nerve Centre KPIs · Audit Profile · Sentiment Settings

Alibris is a used / rare-book reseller marketplace served entirely over plain FTP (Pure-FTPd at pub.alibris.com - AUTH TLS supported but not required, and the existing CloudHub bridge connects without it). Audits cover FTP connectivity + feed-cycle health, listing visibility (suspended, pending, stale, missing-ISBN), order fulfilment SLA (the seller-rating signal that drives Alibris account standing), pricing / margin watch on rare titles, and cross-platform ISBN comparisons against AbeBooks + Amazon book listings to surface drift, missing-on-Alibris ISBNs, and channel-mix imbalance for book-trade merchants.

What this audit checks

Authentication & connectivity

• Plain FTP login on pub.alibris.com:21 succeeds (220 -> 331 -> 230)
• Optional AUTH TLS upgrade, when configured, negotiates cleanly (no fallback to plain after merchant opted in)
• Passive-mode data channel opens on the merchant’s egress
• download/ + upload/ folders readable / writable for the merchant’s username
• Time skew between merchant clock and Alibris server <5 min

Listing-feed health

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

Order-feed health

• Inbound /download/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 AbeBooks + Amazon (the killer area)

• ISBN drift - same ISBN, Alibris vs AbeBooks vs Amazon price delta >15%
• Top-50 AbeBooks / Amazon book-revenue ISBNs not listed on Alibris (cheapest revenue lift)
• Alibris price >15% below merchant’s own DTC list on like_new / very_good first editions (margin erosion)
• Channel mix anomaly: Alibris share of book-trade revenue dropping >25% WoW vs sibling book marketplaces
• Outbound feed cycle desync: same SKU updated on AbeBooks but no Alibris /upload/listings drop 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_alibris_count	3	5
rare_book_floor_violation_count	1	5

Data sources

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