posted on January 29, 2005 06:06:02 PM
I have so many old books and I'm getting ready to sell them now. I tried a few on ebay and did not do great with them. I revised some and fooled around with the auction titles and that helped with a few of them. But I find even the auction views on my books are so low...usually only 6-10 looks.
Can anyone give me a few tips on really anything concerning selling used books? I have old paperbacks, oversized "glossy" paperbacks, poetry, art books, etc.
Maybe ebay is not the best place to sell books?
Is a good thread somewhere here about book selling? Thank you in advance.
I buy a lot of second-hand books, both for myself and for my mother - popular fiction.
I think it's a brutally competitive market. There are lots of people with eBay stores and massive inventories.
My two tips would be:
1.) Use a real photo, not a stock photo. Even if it's just one photo "of the actual book you'll receive," I think that counts for something because so many people use those stock photos.
2.) Try to be as competitive as possible on shipping, including combined shipping. People can do that new type of search that shows all available copies with bid price and shipping cost side-by-side, so it's easy to add the two together. Lots of people try to lowball the bid price while padding the shipping, but it's easier to see through that now.
I also think that women are more likely to bid on Saturday and Sunday - guys during the week. So maybe, depending on your audience, you can identify the best day of the week/time of the day to close by noodling around and trying it different ways.
I don't think Amazon is competitive on secondhand paperbacks in the fiction category because of that $3.49 per book shipping charge. And, their minimum listing fee is 99 cents, too.
posted on January 29, 2005 10:49:25 PM
Rozrr...What's your opinion of half.com? I know Ebay nearly sank that ship recently with one of their hairbrained schemes. I'm just wondering if it's back afloat yet?
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
I haven't looked at half.com in quite a while - years now.
Before I signed up for eBay in January 2002, there was a period of about 5 years when I bought books through Amazon or Half. Here and there, I would look at eBay, but the whole auction thing seemed to be too much - I just wanted to buy a book on the spot. So, I would compare the prices on Amazon to Half.
Now I buy most of my books secondhand on eBay - a lot with BINs.
When I was starting out with my father's railroading books, they had announced its demise. So I never really looked at it from a seller's perspective.
If it's still true that Half doesn't have a listing fee, just a FVF if you sell, that might be the way to go. But I would check out whether Half has a fixed cost of shipping per book like Amazon.
I think the biggest factor in favor of eBay sellers of paperbacks is that ability to offer combined shipping.
Also, with popular fiction hardbacks, I've noticed that a lot of my sellers have other copies for a "second chance" offer so they're able to piggyback and get more than one sale out of an auction.
posted on January 30, 2005 11:48:20 AM
to list on amzn marketplace,the book must have an ISBN number,if you have a zshop (39.99) then you can list any book or item you like,with or without ISBN number.
Half.com does not have a complete list of ISBN books,many of my books are rejected because they dont have them on the database.
some books you may as well donate it to charity,some you can put them in ebay store and use words which may attract theme collectors.
There are some sites which cater to old,OOP books with or without ISBN numbers,do a search and see if they charge you a fee for listing them.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on January 31, 2005 09:23:06 AM
After selling thousands of books, this is what I have to offer:
1. Most books aren't worth much. You have to search ebay to see which ones might have some value.
2. Books of specialized interest, for example on ancient Greek vases, are best listed on Amazon, where you don't have to depend on the right person finding it in 7 days. Same for books mainly of interest to academics.
3. Amazon has supplanted Half.com as a primary resource, since ebay tried to kill half.com.
4. The seller's market for books is getting more competitive all the time.
5. Money CAN be made selling books.
posted on January 31, 2005 09:43:08 AM
what do you mean by 'supplanted'??
amzn is the premier online booksite ,i hate to say it ,but it is true.
a 5 volumes book by Joseph Campbell on world mythology was just sold for 500 dollars on amzn,i have this set listed for over 3 years.
If i have children,i would not sell it for anything in the world .
Half.com does not keep up its site like amzn,if a book cannot be listed on amzn,they ask you to notify them so they can look into it.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
