posted on December 29, 2000 05:42:07 PM new
I'm not sure where to sell my books. So far I've only been selling them on eBay, and I've had pretty good luck. I think that might be because they are all metaphysical books though, and there's a particular demand for those. What I'm wondering is, would I make MORE on them on Half.com or on Amazon Marketplace? I list most of them at half-off cover, and sometimes they sell for that, other times they sell above cover price. Anyone have experience with all three sites? (I'm interested in moving into other types of books; fiction, etc. too.)
posted on December 29, 2000 07:38:56 PM new
Amazon.com's marketplace gets my vote. It's a snap to list and the customer base is huge. I do pretty well there, although books are actually a very small percentage of my inventory these days. Just a note- you can't sell just any old book on amazon's marketplace- cheapie books aren't worth it, if they even come up as saleable on the marketplace at all.
I've never sold on half.com since I hate the site completely as a buyer. Wouldn't even consider selling there at this point. If improvements were made to the site to make it more buyer-friendly I would reconsider.
I used to sell a lot of books on Ebay but now I don't list any books there. The half.com banners have me pretty irritated. It's not much of a boycott since my book inventory is small, but I feel pretty strongly about the whole thing.
I would also like to recommend Yahoo as a viable pace to list books. Book sales on Yahoo are NOT lightning fast, but I usually manage to sell whatever books I list within 2-3 relistings, and I make a decent profit on each. I've even been able to re-sell some pb bestsellers on Yahoo, and those are generally a pretty tough sale in my experience. If you ever sell children's books they do very well (for me anyway) on Yahoo and it's great to not have to pay any fees at all to sell them.
posted on December 29, 2000 08:25:48 PM new
I've sold lots of books on Ebay and on Half.com.
For collector books, definitely Ebay.
For ordinary books I'd go half.com.
HOWEVER, you've got NOTHING to lose by listing them on half.com. They don't charge you if they don't sell. And if it doesn't sell after a while, you can go in and delete it from your sell file. You even can, (but I don't recommend) cancel an order after someone wants to buy your book. I've only done that once when something got spilled on a book and it wasn't in the same condition as when I listed it. But you cancel after an order is placed too many times and it goes against your record. Much better to pull it from your inventory. And remember, at half.com YOU set the price you want for it. It doesn't matter what price they recommend you sell it at. If it's worth $60 to the right buyer, set it at $60. You can always edit your listing and reduce the price if it doesn't sell in a reasonable time frame.
Good luck!
posted on December 30, 2000 04:34:36 AM new
I use all 3, plus Yahoo. I also sell metaphysical books when I can get them. Sometimes I'll have them go with no bids on ebay, then get snapped up immediately on half.com or Amazon. Or they don't sell on half.com or Amazon, then get bids on ebay! Works both ways!
One thing to consider: Amazon charges more, so you will need to set a higher price. You can charge a buck less on half.com.
Yahoo hasn't been great for me, though it's nice when once in a while something sells. I plan to list more often there in 2001, as a place to store some inventory until I am ready to try on ebay.
posted on December 30, 2000 06:50:22 AM new
Another thing to consider is the sheer volume of users at Ebay and Half.com. I feel safe saying that they are the most used auction site, and since there are links aplenty at ebay, for Half.com I'm sure that they rate pretty high too.
If I were looking for a book, any book, I check ebay and half.com before going anywhere else.
posted on December 30, 2000 08:22:54 AM new
The flip side: many people know Amazon who never thought of buying a book at auction. If they see your link on the Amazon site and you are listing at a deep discount, they might be more willing to give Amazon their money as usual than to sign up at half.com or ebay.
posted on December 30, 2000 08:31:19 AM new
Hey! That's a REALLY good point. I didn't think about it like that. Most people DO think "amazon.com" when they think of books... I always did before I got into selling them myself. <sheepish grin>
posted on December 30, 2000 08:33:55 AM new
I am a Canadian so I don't know if I can use half.com ( they ask for a U.S address). but I used to sell books on amazon ~ it was great~10cents to list, free relisting, etc. but now they have featured ( which you pay for but if you don't feature you are buried under thousands of other books) and other things have disappeared like random tabs on their front page but auctions rarely show up. I still sell some books there. I went back to e-bay and changed what I was selling. I found e-bay was quite different for what sold. Some of my ex-library children books ( I used to be a teacher) sold quite high and I don't think I could have even had a bid on Amazon. Science -fiction used to sell high on Amazon but when I listed 2 items that were identical, e-bay items sold much higher. Same for mystery like rex stout. A year ago, the same items would have sold higher on amazon. There are still some books though that generally sell higher on amazon ~ the more known books such as cherry ames, nancy drew, hardy boys. ( I could be wrong on this). I am not a book expert but have thousands of books at my house and am selling off some to buy a better item for my own collection and pay off some bills! It is interesting to compare both sites for me though ie amazon vs e-bay. The bottom line is that amazon was a fantastic place to sell books but for me that has changed and I make much more money selling books on e-bay and as many threads have mentioned, you have to change constantly and so I sell more science fiction, children's library books and mystery where before I sold more nancy drew , hardy boys, cherry ames and romance . Hope this helps. (not suz23 on auctions. )
posted on December 30, 2000 09:36:37 AM new
Nobody's mentioned Bibliofind.com so far, where you list 40,000 books for $25/month. No per-item listing fees, no FVF fees, none of eBay's innumerable rules and policies, etc., etc. You can update your listings and/or change your prices every 24 hours if desired. Bibliofind's involvement and participation in your transaction is minimal, i.e. they do not attempt to mediate disputes between buyers and sellers. There is no feedback system. The seller's user interface is rather primative (and static) which is a virtue to those trying to maintain large listing databases.
I periodically bring some of my 800-900 Bibliofind listings to eBay, usually with good results. Bibliofind, owned by Amazon, claims to have 9M+ current listings, which seems believable when your search finds dozens of copies of seemingly obscure O-O-P titles. Leave you book listed on Bibliofind at 125-150% of the desired selling price, then let it run on eBay for 10 days with a $9.99, $24.99 or $49.99 opening price. Bibliofind's flat $25/month fee becomes cheaper than eBay once your sales reach $150-250/month, assuming a FVF of 5% and auction completion rate of about 40% on 25 or so books opening at $9.99.
I suspect eBay's book business has (or will soon be) severely undercut by simple listing services such as Bibliofind. This e-commerce business model better serves both the buyers and sellers of books. Persons buying old non-fiction sci/tech books have distinctly different buying habits as compared with the Beanie Baby collectors, etc. Half.com is eBay's answer to this threat. A good argument could be made on the theory that Half and Biblio are neither complementary nor competitive services. Another thread...
posted on December 30, 2000 09:42:11 AM new
I'll offer a suggestion if you can stay organized and are willing to do a little more work for greater sales volume.
eBay for any book that by searching their completed sales or other research seems to offer the potential bidder competation and better prices.
For most books use Amazon Marketplace, Half.com and "Buy It Now" listings at YAHOO, all at the same time.
All three are free of listing fees. The first two are easy ISBN # lists and then cut and paste to YAHOO. Not every book is in both Amazon and Half.com data base. The best potential prices is usually at Amazon. Half.com is flooded in many titles with resuling very low prices and not even worth a listing. You can set your own price at YAHOO and it is not shown together with all other available listings and has no FVF.
Now for the stay organized part. What you will in effect have is the same book listed at three locations with all being immediate purchase offerings. When a sale results, and all three are pretty good about quick "Sale Made" email notification, you will have to immediatly cancel the remaining two listings.
Up to triple the exposure with little extra work for your non ebay book inventory which results in more sale, in a given time period, for the same quanity of inventory.
If you don't stay organized you will have to do as I did recently. Run around town trying to find a second copy of any given book that you just sold twice with only one in inventory.
I now keep a 3by5 card in each book showing where it is listed. YAHOO has a bulk listing tool and Half.com a multi-item listing option to help with quantity postings.
After eBay, Amazon seems to generate the highest prices and YAHOO the least sales but YAHOO is improving and I try to use and support YAHOO as an overall alternative to eBay (MAM etc.).
Amazon is starting to receive a lot of organized preasure from writers and publishers who are against their selling used books in the present Marketplace manner. (showing them as available when someone searches for a specific title in the new book section). Time may change what is presently a very profitable used book marketing tool.
posted on December 30, 2000 11:22:42 AM new
HI suz23: to clarify, when I said Amazon I didn't mean Auctions. I tried that for a while and it was dead. I mean Amazon Marketplace
posted on December 30, 2000 11:27:30 AM new
reston-ray: your method is what I did for approximately Oct through early December [before I put all my remaining stock on Ebay for free listing]. I'm only talking around 100 books at any time, and it worked well. I had only one occurance of a book basically selling in what had to have been the same hour on both Amazon and half.com. Otherwise, it was never a problem to simply remove my listing from one site once I sold on another.
It wasn't lopsided, either. I sold this way more or less evenly between Amazon and half.com. I had fewer sales on Yahoo because it's more time-consuming to list there, what with photos and writing descriptions.
When I list on ebay, the book is only on ebay during that time.
posted on December 30, 2000 12:59:17 PM new
brfeely- thanks so much for posting that! I've bought books through bibliofind, but never considered selling through them. Do you ? How are your sales there? just wondering.
posted on December 30, 2000 03:46:13 PM new
I have come this close many times to listing some books on Bibliofind, but I always get stopped by the fact that I don't have a merchant account. If you look at the sellers listing on Bibliofind, ABE, etc., the VAST majority of them have merchant accounts, which makes it much easier to sell books there. People will think twice if they have to get out their checkbook. However, if the book is scarce enough, they *will* write the check! The buyer mindset is a bit different on Bibliofind than on eBay or certainly half.com - people expect that they are dealing with a professional used/antiquarian book dealer. You might also want to check out Bookavenue.com, which is even cheaper than Bibliofind at low volumes of inventory. They also, like Bibliofind, come up when you do a search at addall.com.
The buyer mindset is a bit different on Bibliofind than on eBay or certainly half.com - people expect that they are dealing with a professional used/antiquarian book dealer. You might also want to check out Bookavenue.com, which is even cheaper than Bibliofind at low volumes of inventory. They also, like Bibliofind, come up when you do a search at addall.com.