Selling used book online- A Losing Proposition?!

On 10 Aug 2003 21:19:30 GMT, (Htn963) declared:

Wildwood wrote:

Finally... (Htn963) has come back to
rec.collecting.books...

MindElec wrote:

On 06 Aug 2003 07:27:44 GMT, (Htn963) declared:

Brian wrote:

On the other end of the spectrum:
I saw one seller on Abebooks that priced lots of common
paperbacks at twenty dollars each. I browsed
the listings and found a few thousand listings all at the same
price - instead of doing any research, the dealer listed everything
at twenty and (I assume) figured that the valuable ones would sell.
I never checked back, but I guess that every 3 or 6 months the
whole stock dropped in price. [I looked up the address and it
was a professional building with lawyers as tenents.]

I would never want to buy a book from such sellers, much less
associate
myself with such sellers. Excessively overpricing everything (hoping)
to
make profits on the occasional suckers is bad enough, but not even having
enough of an interest in your ware to do minimal research and description
is
even worse. These people don't deserve to be called booksellers.

the thing is, if he's pricing uniformly at $20 there will be some that
are then underpriced.

How many *common* paperbacks are worth over $20?

How many brags are posted in here?

Getting a common paperback for $20 isn't something to brag about: if
something is common then ergo it isn't valuable. Or do we have radically
different conception of what "common" means?

And if you're suggesting that a whole bunch of people getting ripped-off
is worth the occasional find to discerning book collectors like yourself,
then I am afraid I am going to have to vehemently disagree.

are you suggesting that a "whole bunch of people" are going to flock
to this guy's $20 paperbacks when there are less expensive copies
avaliable? i don't think anyone is going to get ripped off, nor is he
going to sell any books other than the ones that by chance are priced
correctly.

Not every seller knows what every item they sell is worth.

Thank goodness for that or most of us would be out of business.

which was my original point, a bookdealer who sells mainly non-fiction
throws a bunch of "common" sci-fi paperbacks up for $20 apiece,
including the early philip k. dick books.

i'm not going to pass that one by just because everything else he
sells is overpriced.

I have
found boxes made up primarily of common early 1970s Harlequin Romances
that had 2 or 3 Deanna Dwyer paperbacks in them for $3 per box.

That isn't a case of mispricing, but an error in inventory.

it's both...


robert

"I've been long, a long way from here
Put on a poncho, played for mosquitos,
And drank til I was thirsty again
We went searching through thrift store jungles
Found Geronimo's rifle, Marilyn's shampoo
And Benny Goodman's corset and pen"

hello,

thanks to everyone for your replies. i found some of your tips and
comments extremely helpful. i tried posting 80 or so of my books on
half.com and amazon. so far i have managed to sell 9 or 10 in just
one week. so my previous calculation of the typical sell-through rate
(i.e. one book/day for every 1700 posted) on half and amazon was way
off. of course, at $3-$5 a piece i lost a lot of money on these books
(they were purhcased for $10-30 each), but i figured that if these
books can be obtained for 25-50 cents each, selling them online may be
a worthwile endeavor. perhaps my "success" on half and amazon is due
to the fact that i'm selling the "right" books. i found that my
philosophy and religion books sold very well, whereas my computer and
business book has not sold at all. i did a search on google and found
a few companies that sell books by the pallet, but when i checked some
their titles on amazon, i found that most of them are being listed for
less than dollar, and in many instances, for just 1 cent (yes, 1
cent!). i guess the only place to get cheap quality books that can
sell for $3-10 on amazon is a book sale or garage sale, but i doubt i
can find 1000 to 1500 of such books a month to sell to make a living
from it. what do you think?

stacy

Stacy Chung wrote:

thanks to everyone for your replies. i found some of your tips and
comments extremely helpful. i tried posting 80 or so of my books on
half.com and amazon. so far i have managed to sell 9 or 10 in just
one week. ..[snip] ...perhaps my "success" on half and amazon is due
to the fact that i'm selling the "right" books.

Yes, having the "right" books is the key to success to selling
successfully. The question you have to ask yourself is
"can I keep getting the 'right' books with a minimum of
unsellable titles?" I don't want to discourage you, but you
might find that the other 70 books will sell at the rate
of one a year - good stock sells quickly, bad stock
is forever.


i guess the only place to get cheap quality books that can
sell for $3-10 on amazon is a book sale or garage sale, but i doubt i
can find 1000 to 1500 of such books a month to sell to make a living
from it. what do you think?

It can be done, but you will work hard for your living.
The occasional high value book will make it a little easier.

I know someone who does this - he has been in the used book
business for 20 years and carefully watches the market to keep his
feel for what will sell. He spends 3-5 full days a week scouting for
books and lists them on many databases. He avoids books in areas
he does not know about.

B

On 10 Aug 2003 23:23:37 -0700, (Stacy Chung)
declared:

hello,

thanks to everyone for your replies. i found some of your tips and
comments extremely helpful. i tried posting 80 or so of my books on
half.com and amazon. so far i have managed to sell 9 or 10 in just
one week. so my previous calculation of the typical sell-through rate
(i.e. one book/day for every 1700 posted) on half and amazon was way
off. of course, at $3-$5 a piece i lost a lot of money on these books
(they were purhcased for $10-30 each), but i figured that if these
books can be obtained for 25-50 cents each, selling them online may be
a worthwile endeavor. perhaps my "success" on half and amazon is due
to the fact that i'm selling the "right" books. i found that my
philosophy and religion books sold very well, whereas my computer and
business book has not sold at all. i did a search on google and found
a few companies that sell books by the pallet, but when i checked some
their titles on amazon, i found that most of them are being listed for
less than dollar, and in many instances, for just 1 cent (yes, 1
cent!). i guess the only place to get cheap quality books that can
sell for $3-10 on amazon is a book sale or garage sale, but i doubt i
can find 1000 to 1500 of such books a month to sell to make a living
from it. what do you think?

i think that packaging 1000-1500 books a month would tale up all of
your scouting time.

as jonathan said the first upload will have the biggest sell rate,
especially if you were selling $30 books for $3.

palates are sold that way for a reason.... the books wouldn't sell
separately.



robert

"I've been long, a long way from here
Put on a poncho, played for mosquitos,
And drank til I was thirsty again
We went searching through thrift store jungles
Found Geronimo's rifle, Marilyn's shampoo
And Benny Goodman's corset and pen"

"Stacy Chung" wrote in message
om...
hi,

i did a little reseach on the sellers on half.com and found that on
average it takes an inventory of approximately 1700 books to sell just
one book a day. Considering an average profit of $3 per book, one
would have to sell 45 books a day to make a living ($4000/month)
selling books on half.com. That would mean an inventory of 76,500
books, enough to fill a decent-sized warehouse. Has anyone here tried
to make a living selling used books online, and if so, what do you
think of my calculations?

thanks in advance

Stacy
---------------------------
WHAT ABOUT : Abe.com (abe books?)

Yes, having the "right" books is the key to success to selling
successfully. The question you have to ask yourself is
"can I keep getting the 'right' books with a minimum of
unsellable titles?" I don't want to discourage you, but you
might find that the other 70 books will sell at the rate
of one a year - good stock sells quickly, bad stock
is forever.

actually, i don't think it's that bad. $3 is just the average profit.
if you were to pick out some books from a book sale that "look"
saleable (i'd avoid computer and business books that tend to become
obsolete in a year or two), you may get some that sell for $10-15 and
others that sell for a buck or less. sooner or later, i think you'd
develop an instinct for spotting more profitable books and raise the
average profit to more than $3.

It can be done, but you will work hard for your living.
The occasional high value book will make it a little easier.

I know someone who does this - he has been in the used book
business for 20 years and carefully watches the market to keep his
feel for what will sell. He spends 3-5 full days a week scouting for
books and lists them on many databases. He avoids books in areas
he does not know about.

B

---------------------------
WHAT ABOUT : Abe.com (abe books?)

i'll definitely sign up with abebooks if i decide to get into the
bookselling business. abe charges a monthly fee for listing on their
site. i don't know how much business abebooks can generate from people
visiting abebooks.com. abe crosslists to other databases but marks up
your prices, rendering them less competitive than if you just list on
their partner sites (eg half, amazon) yourself.

as jonathan said the first upload will have the biggest sell rate,
especially if you were selling $30 books for $3.

how do u define a "good" stock vs a "bad" stock? i found an article
with interesting take on how fast a book might sell based on its
amazon sales ranking:

http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm

according to the author, if you have a book that ranks 600,000 (which
makes it a "bad" stock), you should be able to sell it in about 100
days if you price it lower than your competitors'. once-popular books
often sell fast but for only a few cents each, whereas some more
obscure books sell for a higher profit, but it'd have to sit on the
market for a while.

Stacy Chung wrote:

abe crosslists to other databases but marks up
your prices, rendering them less competitive than if you just list on
their partner sites (eg half, amazon) yourself.

Exactly. You can count on abe (and often alibris) to have the highest
listings for most books on half.com, and sometimes outrageously so: check Ted
Hughes _Flowers & Insects_ as an example.

And I've been seeing a lot of oh-so-dignified scoffing of half.com here
which I find unfounded. I don't want to break some of you people's elitist
lovefest, but if you are selling for abe or alibris, then you are also selling
for half.com, and effacing your own personal identity and reputation there to
boot...but, hey perhaps this anonymity is preferred by some people.

OTOH, Half.com's poor reputation to you is not because half.com provides
poor service (the listing cost is the lowest of all the major services and the
help desk is very knowledgeable and responsive, at least in my past
experience) but because it is a *buyer*'s market, not a seller's, thus
providing good value to casual purchasers and not a living to die-hard sellers.


For someone just starting out selling or just cleaning out their closet
and shelves -- not looking to make a new career -- half.com is a good placel.
Many buyers are also sellers and vice versas, and the feedback and ranking
system (a la Amazon) works to provide reliable transactions. When you have
more inventory than you can reasonably handle and have (hopefully) built up
your own experience and reputation, then perhaps you might want to try
alibris...but not, I think, for the "common" paperbacks.
--
Ht

|Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
--John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"|

How does it compare to Amazon.com? Amazon seems to have severe problems for
the casual seller and the small but full time bookseller as well.

Randy

--

"Htn963" wrote in message
...

OTOH, Half.com's poor reputation to you is not because half.com
provides
poor service (the listing cost is the lowest of all the major services and
the
help desk is very knowledgeable and responsive, at least in my past
experience) but because it is a *buyer*'s market, not a seller's, thus
providing good value to casual purchasers and not a living to die-hard
sellers.


For someone just starting out selling or just cleaning out their
closet
and shelves -- not looking to make a new career -- half.com is a good
placel.
Many buyers are also sellers and vice versas, and the feedback and
ranking
system (a la Amazon) works to provide reliable transactions. When you
have
more inventory than you can reasonably handle and have (hopefully) built
up
your own experience and reputation, then perhaps you might want to try
alibris...but not, I think, for the "common" paperbacks.
"|