Selling Books on Green Metropolis Discussion (Merged)

lynn2

I joined Green Metropolis over a year ago and have bought several books from the sellers. I have had no problems at all, but I am disappointed with the lack of buyers for my books. The last one I sold was in December 2007
I thought the turnaround would be alot quicker, so I could get rid of all the books I have.

lynn2

Hi again Tracey....here is a link to another thread on this topic. Hope it helps.

Green Metropolis

arkonite_babe

Tracy, I'll move this to the correct board for you

luxor4t

I have sold via greenmetropolis since 2004.

- It is not fast money, but it costs nothing to list and listings stay open until you withdraw the book or it sells, so no hassle.

- Books cost £3.75 to buy, the seller gets £3 + has to pay the P+P, so you -get £2.45 on a skinny book. (You can charge a bit extra for heavier books when you list).

- They encourage you to re-use wrapping materials and second class post, so this cuts down the costs.

- Make sure you get a proof of posting certificate (free) from the post office and keep it for a couple of weeks or until the buyer shows the item arrived.

- You can withdraw your money when you reach £10+ or use the balance to buy other GM books.

Hope this helps!

sarahb123_3

Hi everyone, I apologise in advance if this has already been posted or it is in the wrong place, I did a search but I couldn't find much information. Can anyone tell me anything about Green Metropolis? I have had a look at the site and it is fairly self-explanatory, however I was wondering if anyone might know which books sell well, and how long it takes to sell them? Also, it does say that postage is free to the buyer, but some people appear to be adding postage? I am not sure how that works, so any advice or info, or links to other threads if I am in the wrong place would be most welcome. Thanks in advance.

soolin

I have about 150+ books On Greenmet and sell maybe one a month. It is usually said that popular paperbacks do well, but this has not been my experience at all as I rarely sell anything where there are already lots of copies listed. Most ofmy sales have been quirky old paperbacks, Open University course books and collectable items.

The ste price per book that the seller gets is £3 however fo rnon standard books the seller does get an option to add a small extra for postage, however you really should only do this if the other sellers have already done it otherwise no one will buy from you.

If you have a lot of books to sell and can store them for a while check out Amazon as well, I list on both and also on ebay, there is a long thread here about selling on Amazon that I will bump for you.

teapot2

I too have quite a few books listed on GreenMet and have sold about 30 but they don't go very quickly or at least haven't recently. The option to add postage is for heavier/larger books and it will give you that option when you list, if its available.

Buyers can only see a maximum of 10 copies for sale of any book as the site operates a queue system so in other words, if there are more than 10 copies listed and you add yours, it won't be visible until another one sells - customers can choose which copy to buy from the 10 showing. When you list and it says there are already 10+ copies listed, theres no way to know if that means there are 12 copies or 200 listed so that makes it a less transparent site.

As Soolin mentioned already, its the quirkier books that go and I've sold some on GM that had been listed on Amazon for ages but not gone. You have to be careful listing on more than one site, to remove a book if it sells somewhere.

Also GM have recently started a feedback system which has been a bit confusing as they started existing sellers on 4/5! Worth a go though if you're not in a huge hurry to sell and rememebr that you can only take cash out every month or so. I usually let mine build up and then buy some books off the site with it.

Good luck
Teapot

sarahb123_3

Thank you for your replies, I have spent most of the day reading through the amazon thread, I think I will lurk on here for a bit longer before I try to list anything on either site, the postage side of it is confusing me a little at the moment, but hopefully a bit more reading up will sort that out. Green Metropolis seems a little easier to understand, but I'm just not sure why people would pay £3.75 for a book which may be 1p on amazon, but maybe I am missing something, also I have a lot of books which would sell for a penny on amazon, or there are 10+ of on Green Metroplois. It seems I am not sitting on a goldmine anyway! I will keep reading, and thank you for your help.

soolin

sarahb123 wrote: »

Thank you for your replies, I have spent most of the day reading through the amazon thread, I think I will lurk on here for a bit longer before I try to list anything on either site, the postage side of it is confusing me a little at the moment, but hopefully a bit more reading up will sort that out. Green Metropolis seems a little easier to understand, but I'm just not sure why people would pay £3.75 for a book which may be 1p on amazon, but maybe I am missing something, also I have a lot of books which would sell for a penny on amazon, or there are 10+ of on Green Metroplois. It seems I am not sitting on a goldmine anyway! I will keep reading, and thank you for your help.

I can explain the 1p books fairly easily. On Amazon marketplace each book attracts a postage cost of £2.75 so a 1p novel will cost the buyer £2.76 of which the seller gets around £1.44 (fees are quite high on Amazon). That same book on Greenmetropolis would cost the buyer £3.75 but the seller would get £3. The costs received by the seller both include the postage credit so on Amazon the seller could easily make a loss if the book is a standard paperback modern paperback which is £1.63 to send 2nd class.

I don't bother with 1p novels on Amazon as unless they are high in the rankings and likely to sell in a few days I can't be bothered to store them.

numberthree

Just to let folks know that when I logged in to my account this morning things have changed at Greenmet

The My Account page is now totally different and there is a forum up and running for users.

Looks quiet good I think - a few teething probs I'm sure, but I think it will liven the site up a bit:T