Downloading ISBN record details to my online shopify bookstore

[quay-books]

I am running my online bookstore on Shopify. I also have a bricks-and-mortar store.
I now have almost 2,000 books on my Shopify website.

Every time I add a new book, I have to copy and paste and type a lot of description details...and upload the image of the book.

Here is an example of a completed record on our website:
https://www.quaybooksstore.com/products/picasso-life-with-dora-maar-love-and-war-1935-1945-anne-bald...

Every book has an ISBN number which links to a book record/description/image

Is there a way that using the ISBN number that a book record would automatically load it self, without I having to type in lots of details?

Thanks,
Pat at Quay Books.

[mkamalkayani]

Hi,

It is possible. I don't think there is an existing public app that can do this but a custom app can be developed specifically for this task.

The app would provide you a graphical interface with an input field where you can enter the ISBN number. The app would then get the details of the book from the internet(using a book catalogue api) and create a new product using the found details.

I did a quick search on the google and found out that there are different apis available to search books such as goodreads api, google books api etc.

Is there a specific website or api where the details of your books can be found?

If you are not familiar with creating apps, then you would have to hire a developer to develop an app for you. Incase you would like to hire my services, feel free to send me a personal message and we can discuss this in detail.

Best regards

[quay-books]

Hello!
Thank you for your response.
It is possible to find details of most of the books for which I need a
record at this site.
https://www.indiebound.org/book/
One keys in the ISBN and the record appears.
I presume that you would create the APP for me. Then when it s created,, I
work away independently.
Please give me an indication oof your fee.
Thanks, Pat McMahon at Quay Books.

[mkamalkayani]

Before I estimate the app development fee, I have to make sure the app does solves your problem and provides you with a better workflow.

To get a feel of your current workflow, I did a quick experiment and created a new product. It looks straightforward and easy, with a few clicks and some copy and paste I am able to get the details of the book into a new product. I have attached a screen recording in the attachment.

Sometimes small improvements in the workflow can create a big difference, For example, in the experiment I have used split screen to organise the two websites side by side to make the copy paste quick and easy. 

Would you explain in detail the difficulties you face, even better if you could share a screen recoding of the steps you take while creating a new product.

[Assia2]

hi There please can you help me. i have the same request as the poster. did you come up with a solution? please email me so we can chat further. thank you

[mkamalkayani]

Hi @Assia2 , I have sent you an email.

[TarekGomres555]

Hi I will be interested to see your solution too

[mkamalkayani]

Hi @TarekGomres555 ,

I didn't continued with it.

[mjacobs1975]

Hi Pat!! My wife and I are trying to accomplish the same task with her children’s book focused Shopify store here in the US. Were you ever able to find someone to develop an app to pull in ISBNs into Shopify? Thanks so much, I appreciate any insights you can share. Mark 

[quay-books]

Hello Mark,

Here is a summary of my original question:
I now have almost 2,000 books on my Shopify website.
      Every time I add a new book, I have to copy and paste and type a lot of description details...and       upload the image of the book.
     Is there a way that using the ISBN number that a book record would automatically load it self,           without I having to type in lots of details?

I did briefly download records from this site
https://www.indiebound.org/book/

I quickly abandoned this idea as the downloading process stared to interfere with records I had already manually loaded and the whole thing looked as if it might undo much of the work I had already carried out.

My main point: I had almost 2,000 records, all created by me, on my website.
I discovered this was TOO many! When I had a smaller number of books on my website, my sales were greater.
There is not much difference for a customer if he/she has to search through 2,000 records to say 2 million records on Amazon.

So now, I choose carefully the books which I will place on my website. And I take care in creating these records so that the content is interesting. I think that a smaller number of records with great content is a better way of attracting customers. (BTW, I am not saying that all my records currently have great content, but I am getting there).

And a separate matter. I use social media quite heavily in trying to promote my online business, including paying small amounts to Facebook for paid adverts. Do you use make much use of social media.

Thanks,

Pat,
Pat McMahon,
Quay Books, Limerick
www.quaybooksstore.com

[Cristina_92]

Hi @quay-books ! 

We've created an app "ISBNExpress: Book Importer" that helps you using ISBNs to retrieve all the book details: https://apps.shopify.com/isbn-express-book-importer

By installing the app, you will be able to create 50 book products for free.

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Cristina.

[Cristina_92]

Hello everyone!

We're releasing a Shopify app "ISBN to Book Product" that allows booksellers to create book products from ISBNs only. Here is the link to the demo: https://youtu.be/1uR80RnViiM. If you're interested in our app, drop me an email: chrisciolac@gmail.com

Thanks, Cristina.

[PaulNewton]

@quay-books Crudest approach is if your good with access or excel, the openlibrary maintains a data dump of book info in tab separated format you could use to put together a local desktop utility that you then export to CSV to then import into shopify's product CSV import. Then when that's working you try and move that process to something like googlesheets and connect an automator service like zapier to shopify.

https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps 

Or a paid database services like https://isbndb.com/isbn-database .

Or seeing if you can co-opt book collector software like   https://www.collectorz.com or  https://www.libib.com/pricing to hobble together the workflow you you need (has a kiosk mode barcode scanner thing? /shrug)

There's also the AWS ECommerceService if your an amazon bookseller, or amazon affiliate.

Otherwise the app needs to be developed and there is actually a lot of moving parts in getting quality ISBN data.