Books for a Penny

How can a bookseller *possibly* make a profit on selling a hardcover
book for a penny?! I just cannot get over seeing this on eBay, Amzon,
Yahoo!, etc.

Your thoughts?

Michael

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 23:38:02 GMT, mdobson
wrote:

How can a bookseller *possibly* make a profit on selling a hardcover
book for a penny?! I just cannot get over seeing this on eBay, Amzon,
Yahoo!, etc.

Your thoughts?

Michael



Sure he can, if his non-negotiable shipping fee is high enough...

"mdobson" wrote in message
...
How can a bookseller *possibly* make a profit on selling a hardcover
book for a penny?! I just cannot get over seeing this on eBay, Amzon,
Yahoo!, etc.

Your thoughts?

Michael

One of the biggest eBay sellers (jayandmarie, formerly onecentcds)
started a little empire selling CDs, books and DVDs starting at a
penny. Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost, but never lost
much. The shipping fees (media mail, a bit overpriced) cover a lot
of overlap.

You don't pay much for a one-cent listing, and you get to the TOP
of the bottom-feeding "lowest price first" searchers.

That said, I've only used 1-cent as a starting bid twice on eBay,
and that was for items I knew would bring a huge bidding flurry.
Otherwise, I pretty much set my price and usually get it.

Kris

"mdobson" wrote in message
...
How can a bookseller *possibly* make a profit on selling a hardcover
book for a penny?! I just cannot get over seeing this on eBay, Amzon,
Yahoo!, etc.

Your thoughts?

Michael

I forgot: many of the 1-cent sellers actually just use that method
to "buy" names of contacts for future, higher-priced sales.

Kris

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 23:38:02 GMT, mdobson
wrote:

How can a bookseller *possibly* make a profit on selling a hardcover
book for a penny?! I just cannot get over seeing this on eBay, Amzon,
Yahoo!, etc.

Your thoughts?

Michael


Sorry, hit 'send' too quick.

Sure he can, if his non-negotiable shipping fee is high enough to
cover the cost of the book, the shipping, and give him some profit.

I can buy hardcovers at the local Goodwill store for $1.00 each, and
mail them for about $1.75 or less. So if I set my shipping at $5.00,
I've made $2.25 profit. Set the shipping higher, or buy the bookis
cheaper (like at garage and yard sales, or at FOTL sales ($5.00 for
all you can stuff in a shopping bag -- that's at least ten, and more
likely fifteen books) and I can make more profit.