Selling Your Stuff on Amazon Part 13 - Advice for newbies in first two posts

soolin

I've never really bothered with many 1p books so it's not too much of a problem for me as I dump them as soon as they go that low.

helsbells

soolin wrote: »

Help, am sitting here surrounded by books, they are everywhere and the cat nearly got concussion a few minutes ago when she knocked a pile over onto herself. I may get even more tomorrow and I just can't see what else to do with them.

I put loads of books and other stuff on freecycle to go and people haven't bothered to colllect and I don't know if they have changed thei rmind or just can't be bothered.

I love Freecycle in principle but hate it in reality!! Ive only ever given things away and always gets tonns of quite emotional pleas. The ones collecting ofetn turn up in a better car than ours. Now I don't care on the one hand it is about recycling first and foremost but then I just get stressed someone perhaps more genuine has missed out, particularly when we gave away an old playstation. I wouldn't even attempt to get something for myself. Books wise now its second hand shop or the book bin at the supermarket when we do recycling. Don't you sell some for charity yourself Soolin?

helsbells

People seem to be doing quite well at the mo here. The weird thing was when everyone went a bit slow after Christmas i did well and now Ive gone. This is particularly funny as I haven't been through my books for a while so went through the whole list getting rid, checking details and price etc, thinking that should shake things up and now its gone totally dead.:rotfl: I DID enjoy doing the inventory tho! Oh man im such a nerd!!:o

soolin

helsbells wrote: »

I love Freecycle in principle but hate it in reality!! Ive only ever given things away and always gets tonns of quite emotional pleas. The ones collecting ofetn turn up in a better car than ours. Now I don't care on the one hand it is about recycling first and foremost but then I just get stressed someone perhaps more genuine has missed out, particularly when we gave away an old playstation. I wouldn't even attempt to get something for myself. Books wise now its second hand shop or the book bin at the supermarket when we do recycling. Don't you sell some for charity yourself Soolin?

I get hundreds a month and I do sort them into selling ones and ones for my charity fairs. There are still some that are suitable for neither. I've got a dozen or more heavy biographies here at the moment as well as 4 boxes of Mills and Boon that I'm fed up of carrying around. All my local charity bins are full to overflowing but i'm just off to a different town where their BIN is often empty so I'll leave them there.

MsConstipatedPiggyBank

I've had a readthrough of some of the info. here, and have gone and obtained some books that I intend to re-sell through Amazon. I've still got a question though:

Who is defined as a trader, for the purpose of Amazon? I don't have a business, but I do plan to sell a number of books in this manner. I'm going to test it out by trying the 0.86p per book service and if it works, I'll subscribe. I know that I'll need to declare tax, so will keep accounts of amount spent on books, paper and envelopes.

Also, I note that the domestic (UK) variable fee is listed as 0.49 for a book (plus 0.86 product fee), but yet Amazon seems to imply they'd deduct 1.93 from a final sale. How does this work?

soolin

MsConstipatedPiggyBank wrote: »

I've had a readthrough of some of the info. here, and have gone and obtained some books that I intend to re-sell through Amazon. I've still got a question though:

Who is defined as a trader, for the purpose of Amazon? I don't have a business, but I do plan to sell a number of books in this manner. I'm going to test it out by trying the 0.86p per book service and if it works, I'll subscribe. I know that I'll need to declare tax, so will keep accounts of amount spent on books, paper and envelopes.

Amazon make no distinction between private and business sellers, we are all the same and either way you are eligible to upgrade to merchant pro to save the 86p per book.

I for instance am self employed, however I trade as myself but use a business name on Amazon, more like a nom de plume really that gives it a nice professional fee. However I could just as easily trade as 'Jane Smith -books, if I chose.

Book selling is very addictiive, I'd be interested to hear how you get on so please update us with your progress.

MsConstipatedPiggyBank

Soolin, can you give me an idea of how many books you have listed and in your house at any one time? I have a fair bit of space at home that I can use to store books, but I need an idea of how many it would be a good idea to list at once. So, if I'm listing, I don't know, 200 books, how many are likely to be sold over an average 3 month period?

soolin

MsConstipatedPiggyBank wrote: »

Soolin, can you give me an idea of how many books you have listed and in your house at any one time? I have a fair bit of space at home that I can use to store books, but I need an idea of how many it would be a good idea to list at once. So, if I'm listing, I don't know, 200 books, how many are likely to be sold over an average 3 month period?

Someone on the seller boards on Amazon did a percentage thingy that showed the likely sales over a certain period, but there is no real search facility there so I can't find it.

Basically though you'll sell quite a high percentage when you first list and it will dwindle away week on week.

I buy books in bulk and try to make a habit of delisting books when I think they are no longer likely to sell. At the moment i have about 1450 listed and I sell between 50-70 on an average month which is actually quite poor statistically. Of the ones i buy I can often dump at least 75% of them sometimes as I won't do 1p novels (even with a pro merchant account you will only make about 30p a book after the postage increases in April) I also won't list anything with a sales ranking past 2 million, and for books where there are lots listed I'd not bother listing even at 500,000 unless I could offer the book in near perfect condition.

Most of my books are in an outbuilding that has power and light and I post out every day unless I am on a long contract then it might be every other day.

Just be careful before you list to watch th eprices, the mega listers have postal accoutns and can post out a lot cheaper than we mere mortals so we cna't even match their prices. Don't be tempted to go too low to match them and find you cans't afford to post the books, if there are too many sellers with too low a price be ruthless and dump the book and make room for a better one.

mirko

Wohoo!

Just thought I'd use this thread to say I sold my first book on Amazon Marketplace on Friday.

I think overall I'll have made 5-6 quid after postage costs.

Magic.

Thanks to all who've contributed to this thread as I've learned quite a bit from your postings.

1 book down 9 to go.

(For those wondering how long it might take to sell books.. It's taken me a month to get a sale - obviously the time taken depends on the books/prices you have on offer!)

flipper_2010

Well done! :-) But watch out, its addictive.

What was the rating on this one? I've been trying to work out the time it takes to sell and the rating, but they don't seem to add up too well