selling your stuff on Amazon...part three...

Budget

Thanks, I just read your advice and have printed it. Based on a thread I read here earlier today (maybe another one of yours) I went to my bookcase and found some books to sell. Have listed 20 and have another 25 to list tomorrow. I'll let you know how things go.

Budget

Budget

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

Kat, it sounds like you've had a really good week with all those sales, nice profits there. With all of your books to list you might find a barcode reader to be of use instead of keying in all those ISBNs. I don't use one myself but you can see some listed on ebay.

Dear AT

Can you help me? I read and printed your first post and decided to list all my surplus books on Amazon (20 so far but many more to go) as I'd tried eBay and not really got very far. When I click on "Sell another one" I have typed in the author and title, e.g. Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn rather than an ISBN number and then found an identical copy showcased, clicked on the "New and Used from xxp" and then on "Sell your own copy of this". My problem is that sometimes I don't have the identical copy so I have to write in my comments "This is a PAN and NOT a Penguin paperback". Would an ISBN number solve this problem? And how do I sell a book which is not already for sale on Amazon? ISBN again? I have an enormous amount of books which I want to sell and hope to list a dozen or so a day over the next week or so. Can you help?

apprentice_tycoon

Hi Budget

I find that writing in the ISBN number (from the back of the book in most recent books, on older ones it's on an inside page) is the quickest way to get the book identified.
If the number isn't found in the database then you have no choice but to go and search by title and author, you nearly always find that the book is there but will have a different publisher and maybe a different cover design, so long as you spell this out clearly then you've done it properly.

If I'm listing a few books at a time I copy and paste the description of the condition and then just alter a few words if needed for each book

You asked about how do you sell if it's not on amazon, you can't I'm afraid if they can't show the book then it can't be sold. I got excited about a boxed set I found at a boot sale on Sunday, the books were perfect and the box was immaculate but it's not in the database so I can't sell on amazon, I could sell the books indiviually but only for pennies so this set will go on ebay (I've been contemplating getting an ebay shop again and keeping it just for books, I've been struggling to find a snappy name for the shop but I'll have a brainstorming session - by myself! - today and get it done)

If the amount of books is weighing you down the thing to do is either take a look at the barcode scanner (no idea how they work in practice, a bit too techy for me) or put them in piles of 10 and do them at intervals with a small reward between each group....I'm suggesting chocolate here......

apprentice_tycoon

There have been a few posts on these threads where people have been saying that they struggle to find a book once it's sold, if you don't have a book shelf display then you end up with boxes and if you are tight on space like me you may have boxes squirrelled away in different areas of the house, I have 3 places to look and about 10 or 11 boxes to look in.
The easiest way I've found is to keep the boxes in the date of aquiring them order, I can't put them by subject because there are too many subjects and I would be constantly sorting them and I'm sure that I wouldn't get one subject neatly filling each box. Some are under the stairs and it's a real pain having to go and get them from there when they sell so if I categorised them then I'd be forever under the stairs adding my new purchases to this box or that box. So at the moment I start a box, fill it over a period of time and then start another.

So my idea was if each storage box was referenced and this reference was written in the Amazon description so that when the book sells I can check the description I gave at the time and in it there will be my code telling me which box to look in, I can just add b1 at the end of the description which will tell me that it's box 1 that I need to go to....it's so obvious I'm really cross that I didn't think of it sooner....

grimelda

I used to have a Barcode scanner when I worked in a lab. The scanner we had simply plugged into a USB port. You had to install a driver, but then it would just read the barcode into whatever program you were using. It was very handy because I could scan a bunch of barcodes into Excel or any other software program in no time.

I don't know how much they cost but if it's not too expensive it could be a good idea. You should weigh up wether the scanner or the chocolate rewards are a better/cheaper option.

Budget

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

Hi Budget

I find that writing in the ISBN number (from the back of the book in most recent books, on older ones it's on an inside page) is the quickest way to get the book identified.
If the number isn't found in the database then you have no choice but to go and search by title and author, you nearly always find that the book is there but will have a different publisher and maybe a different cover design, so long as you spell this out clearly then you've done it properly.

If I'm listing a few books at a time I copy and paste the description of the condition and then just alter a few words if needed for each book

You asked about how do you sell if it's not on amazon, you can't I'm afraid if they can't show the book then it can't be sold. I got excited about a boxed set I found at a boot sale on Sunday, the books were perfect and the box was immaculate but it's not in the database so I can't sell on amazon, I could sell the books indiviually but only for pennies so this set will go on ebay (I've been contemplating getting an ebay shop again and keeping it just for books, I've been struggling to find a snappy name for the shop but I'll have a brainstorming session - by myself! - today and get it done)

If the amount of books is weighing you down the thing to do is either take a look at the barcode scanner (no idea how they work in practice, a bit too techy for me) or put them in piles of 10 and do them at intervals with a small reward between each group....I'm suggesting chocolate here......

Dear Apprentice

That's helpful, thanks! I have in fact now gone to Abebooks to get a rough price, but the two ISBN numbers I entered came up as "Not recognised" so had to enter titles again. Well, I'll try ISBNs on Amazon and see what happens. It's no big deal to enter author and title if all else fails. Somehow, I'd hoped to wake up and find half of my books sold, but I guess if I list them in the early hours then people get up and go to work and only start looking for "wants" when they get back from work. Perhaps this evening?
Also, I think your "numbered box"idea is great! I'm lucky in that a year ago I remodelled my study (box room) and put wall to wall shelving on. Having taken out lots of books to sell and shuffled the ones I want to keep together I have created a totally free shelf which I will now fill with Amazon Sales books, which should make it easier to find them when they sell. Will keep everyone posted as to how I do. These chat sites (threads?) are really good for ideas, support and encouragement. Roll on Christmas (Debt Free Day).
Budget

soolin

I use a box system like you suggest AT and it works for me. I have an outbuilding where my stuff is stored so have large boxes with numbers for my stock. I have a list on the PC of what is in each box..not the full title just how I will recognise it and just add to the box list or mark items as sold as appropriate.

I also have book shelves all over the house for my own items and some of those ar elisted. If I sell somehting from my personal stock I can usually (and I say usually as I couldn't even remember a book last month!) remember roughly what room it was in and in which book case.

The system works fine for me, I just wish I could sell some stuff now, one VHS tape last week and an audio book this week and that's been all apart from a few random sales on ebay.

Soo

larmy16

Bit of bad luck for me. I had a book for sale which was the only one in this country. Customer emailed me to ask if I would send it special delivery as it was urgent and she would pay difference.

It cost £4.50 to send, so I told her the difference between 1st class and SD was approx £3.51 (this was in a little note) and she could just send me stamps to cover the amount.

This morning I get an email saying that as she had already paid £2.75 for postage, she worked out she only owed 46 pence. I said it was ok - not to bother sending the 46p stamp!!!! I mean how do you even begin to explain to someone how Amazon take their cut etc??

I guess you live and learn! Shame though as I am now £3.50 down on what I could have made. I still made a profit of £8.39 on a 50p book, but it does seem ironic and I would not do the same again.

elona

I listed 90 books on Amazon yesterday and have sold three!

Going to the post office later and may go to the pound shop for some cheap jiffy bags.

apprentice_tycoon

Elona - 90 books is a lot in one day! (bearing in mind my rule of thumb - 10 books then a reward)

larmy - you're right, you don't stand a chance of trying to explain the postage costs, hard luck.