selling your stuff on Amazon...part 2

purplepatch

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

When I've done all these checks I just take a leap of faith and buy it - I rush home to check it out on amazon and drop all my other shopping at the door, that can wait, the suspense about how much it is already selling for is intense!

:rotfl:
Exactly the same in my house AT - I can often be found checking Amazon before I get my coat off!

I have a stash of books and cds in my spare room, in boxes and stacked on the dressing table and in drawers and cupboards. Hubby isn't all that impressed, especially when we had guests over christmas

I buy from charity shops, usually spending 50p or a pound on them, as we don't get any cheaper than that. Yesterday was a good day with 5 charity shop buys totalling £2.50 netting me a £33 profit. I've bought my fairshare of turkeys but have listed them on greenmet and will also be trying readitswapit when I get the time to list them.

To avoid buying 1p books at the charity shops, I do now tend to memorise titles, go home and check on amazon, then if they are valuable I go back to buy them next day, tieing it in with my trip to the PO. If they've gone by then, tough. Although I have been known to make a special trip if it's a particularly good one.

I too go for the books that look good - historical non-fiction paperbacks often do quite well. I try to go for the lighter books, but don't discount the heavier ones. I picked up a very heavy history of Europe hardback for £1 and sold it yesterday for £18. The postage was a fiver by standard parcels, but I posted it within 2 hours of the order being placed so I've taken a chance not posting it first class, but fingers crossed. So quite a nice £12 profit there on a really heavy book.

One other thing I do, and this is where I get a bit cagey as don't want to invite competition, but I have quite a specialised interest dating back to my childhood which I know quite a lot about. I noticed that the books I had in this particular genre were pretty highly sought after and so now I actively hunt out books on this subject matter to sell. I've bought stuff on ebay and also have tracked down certain books that are available new and at rrp over the internet if you hunt hard enough, that have since been deleted and that people are now willing to pay premium rates for. Perhaps I could be said to be ripping people off, but I figure that if I use my skills to source something and other people don't, then that's their lookout.

I've been doing marketplace since noticing this thread in mid October and have made over £550 after postage and buying costs, so it is definitely supplementing our income quite nicely. Prior to that I'd been intending to find part time work one day a week, but I think that I'm going to stick with this for a while and see how it pans out. A lot of the stuff I've sold so far is my own and parents' old books and cds, dvds, vids etc and the charity shop stuff has just been a minor dabbling on the side. But once my own stuff runs out I'm going to step up the buying side of it, especially once the boot fairs start up again - will also venture further afield for the charity shops, so far have only done my home town (we have 4 of them here, in a very small town, so I'm a bit spoilt).

It's something I never considered doing until I read Apprentice Tycoon's wonderful thread and I'm so grateful to her. And what's more I do enjoy it. It's convenient, and fits in around bringing up my daughter, so I'm chuffed to bits.

Anyway, that's me

voodoozoe

Hello everyone, I also have started to step things up a bit and plan to get Pro merchant membership if it ever becomes half price again. My strategy (and I'm still learning!) is to mainly focus upon non-fiction, weird and wacky but also things I think might have a biggish following such as making miniature furniture and trainspotting type books!!! I will not spend over 50p on a book unless it seems to be something very special.

At the moment I don't know much about fiction so the only ones I buy are 25p ones that are like new, then they go on GM or readitswapit. I'm still waiting for my confirmation email from listbooks (since New Years Eve) so thats a bit rubbish.

I plan to have "rounds" of charity shops to do all in one go eventually!!! At the moment I take the opportunity to visit charity shops in areas I might be visiting anyway, eg. I went to get my eyes tested for mystery shopping in a biggish town and OH went round the ch. shops while I was in there, on the way back home we called at another town where we are very familiar with the best charity shops!! I am going for an interview in a different town this week so we'll have a good trawl there and when I go to work at the pub sometimes OH comes with me and does the charity shops there!!!

I don't have to find the books cos' when I sell one I tell my OH and he trots off, gets it, packs it and posts it for me...all I do is print out their address and the packing slip!!!!!

chickadee

Thanks all for your very useful replies. I can go with this as a hobby that makes a profit or even as a part time income but I suppose that beyond that I would need to move house to Waterstones or similar.

My main sales so far have been books that I owned previously, so anything now will be from charity shops. I also intend to keep an eye on the small ads in my local paper so if I ever see anything I may speculate.

When the car boot sales start in earnest in the spring I will have a look at them. They often seem to be the places to pick up the weird and wonderful I think.

Cheers!

Yorkielass

I've sold 2 CDs and a book so far and have about 15 CDs/Audiotapes and Books listed. We have a small flat and not much room to store things so I haven't dared try the charity shops yet

Another tip for looking for books etc is to ask friends and relatives if they have any they're planning on getting rid of My parents have started a box of things for me in my old bedroom for things they don't want and I'll collect them and carboot them in the summer - but I raided it over Christmas and checked the books and audiotape in there on Amazon - bought all but 1 back and listed them over New Year.

So annoyed that we took 2 cars full of books to an Oxfam bookshop at Easter from OH's parents house - not that I object to the charity having them at all but they seemed so overwelmed by them all books we were bringing in that if I'd of found the ones which were best for Amazon and taken some back to sell them then we wouldn't have filled their stockroom
I sat there at Christmas looking at the bookshelves and was so tempted to see what some of them were going for as some were really random - but didn't think it was best to steal books from my inlaws to be

Anyway need to post a CD now so better dash to the post office as don't have much lunchbreak left

Angela

Happy New Year All Amazonians

Thanks for the tip about the baby wipes they work really well,they are on bogof at tescos at the mo if anyone is interested.

Cant wait for the bootfairs to start up.

I have a bookcase from a previous job sitting in the garage,I need to find somewhere to put it,have to ask other half when he comes home where to put it as the boxes are getting a bit unmanageable,what with amazon,swaps,list books and green met,anyone found a way of organising all these differant areas?

Dont want to put a damper on things but what is going to happen when the postage changes,not sure when it is I think it may be April? are we still going to be able to make a profit?I am sure at has looked at this already.

Good Luck for the new year all.

apprentice_tycoon

Hi Angela - it's august when it all changes, I was reading an article about it in the daily mail yesterday evening and for the first time in years I actually had a nightmare - about flippin post!!!!

I don't know how it will really work, some of the parcels are going to be cheaper but it's the practicalities of measuring the parcels that are hard to grasp, the girls as the PO don't know much more than I do either.

voodoozoe

Have just collected a FREE box of books that were advertised on freecycle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The box is HUGE, bigger than my wildest expectations and chock full of weird books (picked up from quite a hippy bloke)...HURRAH!!! :j

It was all a bit nerve-wracking cos when I emailed him, he said someone was coming to "pick through" them this afternoon to see if there were any they wanted but I could get the ones that were left after 12. I have been on pins all day waiting to phone him to see if they had been and I could collect my booty (half expected them to take the whole box before I could get there) and when I phoned at 2.30 he said they still hadn't been...arghhhhhhh!!!

Then the line went all weird and crackly and he said he'd ring me back...about 6 excruciating minutes later he phoned and OH answered (I was in a state by then!!!)and basically the man's wife told him to let us take them cos she was sick of waiting to get rid!!! Shortly after we are the proud bearers of a GIGANTIC BOX OF FREE WEIRD BOOKS!!!

As you may be able to tell I'm pretty excited...just got to engineer the pick up of the second box and my life will be complete

Other good news...my OH put his old phone on Ebay and has sold it for £58.99 so thats a blimmin good day in the voodoo household.

apprentice_tycoon

Voodoo - you deserve it, it's all karma, you must have been nice or generous to someone recently and you are being repaid in kind - I don't just sell wacky books, I read some and believe them too!

voodoozoe

Well I try my best...and believe me sometimes its hard work!!! :snow_laug

ps. I'm on with the Feng Shui too!!!

mike55_2

congratulations voodoozoe

i know that feeling. i bought a bundle unseen from the classifieds yesterday and knew they were worth a bob or two, but no idea of the condition.

a friend collected them for me and 1st one i listed was going for 60 big ones! :eek: so i did a price check on abe books and its about 40 quid, but not bad is it? i only paid 15 and some aren't even listed.

apprentice tycoon? you might be able to help me here, but when does insurance etc kick in please?