posted on December 11, 2000 08:54:38 PM new
well ...I use half com, amazon marketplace , ebay and Am considering ABE. I sell newer books on half com. medium older books on amazon that half com does not take thw isbns on and Thought I could sell older books on ABE or bibliotica or something like that. I am also considering a z shop on amazon as I have tons of stuff besides books like records (lps) and collectable. I am tired of ebay inventing ways to suck my money from me and killing me with listing fees. Ebay has become a problem as my listings used to be a sale for every 3 I listed, then every 4 then every 5 now its at about 10% of what I list. I usually list under $10 to $20 items.I am not new at this and have been selling for over a year. I want to sell more books as they are trouble free and easy to get cheaply because so many people in my area are dummies and do not like to read.( go to the auction and they love a box of porn, But boxes of books area different story. so what do you think here. Help me out.with some positive ideas. Currently I list about $1500 about 300 on half com and 60 items on amazon.I sold about $1500 in books in 5 months part time. I want to become much more deeply involved with internet book sales. thanks
posted on December 12, 2000 10:12:59 AM new
List everything you have on ABE and sign up for every bookseller program they have. Barnes & Noble, Abe.COMmerce, Chapitre etc.
It doesn't just have to be older expensive books.
Listing on ABE is not exclusive---you can turn down a sale if the book sold somewhere else.
posted on December 13, 2000 05:05:00 AM new
retrolink - I took a quick peek at the ABE site. Looks like a lot of work to get the listings up - you probably need to know the booksellers lingo really well - but maybe it's no more work than writing listings on ebay. I believe the prices are also higher on sites like ABE, so if they do sell you might get a better deal. But will they sell?
I started selling books on ebay in Feb 2000, and at last count I've sold around $9000 worth, so I think it's a pretty good gig for [very] part time work. That includes a gradual immersion in half.com, Yahoo, and Amazon Marketplace as well.
I think the main secret of success is developing a good eye for what buyers want [I'm not all the way there yet], buying as low as possible from local sources [I love library book sales], and keeping a lot listed on either free sites or utilizing free listing days.
The main challenge is finding books to sell that aren't already over-listed everywhere, and so you get no or very low bids.
posted on December 13, 2000 08:23:24 AM new
Keziak----yes they do sell on ABE and they sell a lot--and I'm not paying a percentage on each sale. Depending on how many books you have listed it is a flat rate. And I set my shipping price--not Half or Marketplace.
They have a program you can download "Homebase" and you can catalogue all your books with minimal trouble and upload them in a jiffy.
I sell a huge amount of my books to Barnes & Noble Out of Print department from ABE. ABE has a partnership with B&N--ABE subscriber books are listed at Barnes & Noble ---I still get my posted price--Barnes & Noble ups the price a bit for their profit.
posted on December 13, 2000 08:33:58 AM new
Amazon was a great place a year ago for selling books 10cents a listing and relisting for freee!!! However, now I am finding it more and more difficult to sell on Amazon and switched back to e-bay ( mostly older children's books ) I am interested myself in ABE ( after your description zazzie! ) and I could use some advice too. I am actually selling off my collection but am not a real bookseller per se Can you sell on abe but be just a "person"? THanks Suz.
posted on December 13, 2000 09:55:04 AM new
There are lots of sellers on ABE who are just a person. They've got great support system---real people at the end of the 1-800 number.
You can start off small $20.00 per month for 500 books or $35.00 for up to 4,000---then $40.00 for up to 10,000
posted on December 18, 2000 05:59:07 PM new
I figured I'd post here, since I *sorta* have a similar question. I've sold a fair number of books I don't read anymore on eBay, but it seems that Amazon.com might make more sense. Problem is, I know NOTHING (or less than that) about Amazon's auction process.
That though, is something I'll have to read up about on my own. Here's some specific questions you seasoned booksellers might be able to answer though:
Do books sell better on Amazon than on eBay because they show up in general searches?
If you want to succeed at selling books on eBay, do you need to pick a popular genre, or can you buy in chunks from garage sales for resale?
Which sells better, popular fiction or children's books?
Hardcover or soft, which sells more?
Okay...that's it for now. Thanks for letting me ask away, now if only you can help with the answers!!!
posted on December 18, 2000 08:07:41 PM new
check this out. Sell high sell low. sell as much as you can for whatever price you can get. The trick is you buy boxes of books at auctions, garage sales or wherever. If you get 40 books for $5 at a auction and sell one for $15 on ebay, old, and 10 on amazon marketplace for $4 each, and 10 cheap paperbacks on half com for $1 each how much money did you make? everyone worries about making the big kill. Sure I got lucky on Ebay once with a goofy indian ( from India)religeous book that some nut in NY bought for $104 that I paid .03 cents for at a church flea market but most sales are for $10 to $1. buy in bulk and sell accordingly. 1. Dumb basic paperbacks put on half com for whatever you can get,. 2. Better hard backs and out of print books put on amazon marketplace. Forget the auction there. You'll get a better price and make more money despite thier fees. I sold a cliff note to a guy in Europe and made more money in thier postage reimbursement then I did on the book. Sell international. No bigee to ship it out. 3. If you get a old book or something unusual try Ebay. Then if it does not sell put it on amazon marketplace. 4. Interesting point that a lot of books I could not sell in one place like Ebay for instance sell right away on half com or amazon marketplace.Hey and tectbooks do well on amazon and halfcom too. The dumber the better they sell. Do not leave any stone unturned. I used to sell a lot of ebay but they suck your money away from listing fees and seem to have way too many technical problems. I have emailed them and suggested that they stop trying to change, improve or alter thier site and instead just pursue stabilization of what they already have... Instead they keep trying to change what was not broken in the first place. For someone like me they ruined themselves with pure greed. Like if you have a successfull business and are making money why would you try to tack all kinds of little costs on to hurt the customers {sellers}that built your business. All of a sudden all the loyal ebayers become simple little pawns in a business world where all the big guys start to control the whole market. And all of a sudden the little guy that tries to sell a hardback book for $4 gets sucked right out of the market because 300000 people including big business are selling a million other things and the site goes down when your auction is ready to close. BINGO you lost and they won, You certainly did not get your listing fees back when the site went out for 4 hours. Sorry about the rant. Getting back to book selling. I feel that if you vary your inventory and buy cheaply you can make money on any types of book you sell. If you buy a box of book that you pay 5 cents each for how much profit will you make on them. ? Forget that you have to sell books for $35 or $50 ...so what if you sell of couple of fear street paperbacks for 50 cents. who cares. Just sell.Throw it in a bubble wrap bag that you get for 25 cents in bulk and take your $1 profit.. list more. learn more. Soon enough you could make $200, $500. $1000 a week in net profit or more. However, if you are new if you make $10 bucks you have $10 bucks more than you had before. Its a numbers game. I am also interested in ABE books. They have 25 million books on thier site by sellers . They are a book selling vehicle that a lot of people are talking about. I may consider this in the near future. Any further imput on abe book sucess stories. ?
posted on December 18, 2000 08:30:40 PM new
Thanks, zazzie and others, great advice . I just started selling a few books 1 1/2 years ago and couldn't figure out if buying a book for $ .10 and selling for $3.00 was a good profit or buying a book for $ .25 and selling for $ 100.00 was better! However that last one rarely happens and the other can happen every day! It sure takes time though! and lots of browsing to see what sells. Merry Christmas to all and have a safe one! suz23 Not suz 23 though on auctions.
posted on December 19, 2000 09:32:15 AM new
retrolink: Some of that is good advice, but I don't think that there is any profit on a $3 or $4 book. That book took time to list, took up space on the shelf that could have been used by a better book, is probably in such bad condition that it will bring you a bad feedback. Hard to believe that some amateurs sell on half.com for a penny and I guess make their money from the $2 shipping?! It takes me time and money to list, get the address, pack, take it to the post office, track, email, etc. It may be a numbers game, but every $100 book is worth lots more than 10 $10 books because it was only one listing, one packing, one shipping, one book on the shelf. Aim high! And do your research -- the $100 book looks just like a $10 book -- it is not necessarily old or big. Just hard to find with an interesting subject. I have sold books from the 1990's for $200 and up.
posted on December 19, 2000 09:45:50 AM new
HI Valerie -
Nice to see your post today! I've had, I think, a single $100 book. They don't come my way very often. More typically I've been happily surprised when something sells in the $30-$50 range, because I just don't spend much to buy my books for re-sale. The few times I spent more, thinking I had a better book, I was disappointed big-time.
On the other hand, it's very true that books are bulky and selling 100 of them for $1, with all the attendant paperwork, is a loser compared to a single $100 book. The trick is finding the happy medium somewhere in between. For me, Marketplace is part of the answer because all my sales there have been for good prices.
For example, I routinely end up selling books on ebay that go for my low opening bid of $2-4, but I think I've only sold a single book that low on Marketplace. I price them higher due to Amazon's cut.
The trick is getting enough education in the sites to know at a glance what NOT to buy for resale because there will be 50 copies on half.com and 15 on ebay and there's no hope.
Fiction is still a hard category for me due to this phenomenon. It's just really hard for me to find a decent seller in fiction, though I'm slowly building up a "want list" of authors and titles to look for.
