Amazon - how do you make money?

LJD1_2

Hiya
I've seen a few people mentioning selling on Amazon. I've got a stack of books and it's time to sell some to get debt free. However, when I look on Amazon some are selling for 1p. How do you make money from that? Am I missing something?
Many thanks

duncan54747

I think that the sellers charge higher P&P than normal. Have seen books for sale for 1p with P&P of £4. Must reduce the amount of commission sellers pay to Amazon.

iwanttosave_2

It is an odd one. But amazon give you a fixed rate of #2.75 P&P so once you post your book for about 40p, pay your 86p fee's (and also 17.25% of total value) you are in profit by about £1.40 give or take.

Now if you have 50 books to sell that are just collecting dust, thats £70 so it all mounts up, but you do also find the odd gem. I have a really naff book from the 80s and it turns out its worth £45 because its rare and I also have another for £40.

Just jot down all the ISBN numbers and go through amazon to see if any are worth anything.

lynzpower

you do get £3 a book via Green metropolis.

Its a bit slower though I believe bt I cant understand amazon try as I might

LJD1_2

Well i've listed a couple on Amazon and am going to look at Green metropolis too. Thanks.

iwanttosave_2

duncan54747 wrote:

I think that the sellers charge higher P&P than normal. Have seen books for sale for 1p with P&P of £4. Must reduce the amount of commission sellers pay to Amazon.

In the market place they have a set P&P so sellers cannot change it as far as I am aware.

LJD1_2

iwanttosave wrote:

In the market place they have a set P&P so sellers cannot change it as far as I am aware.

Yip that's what i've just read. I guess even if i make pence on a book it's still money towards being debt free. I'm even getting rid of some of my beloved money saving books - not Martin's of course!!!!!

iwanttosave_2

Good luck LJD, there is an amzon sellers thread on the ebay board if you need anymore help.

Hope it gets you a little closer, fingers crossed for you hun xxx

comicmankev

iwanttosave wrote:

It is an odd one. But amazon give you a fixed rate of #2.75 P&P so once you post your book for about 40p, pay your 86p fee's (and also 17.25% of total value) you are in profit by about £1.40 give or take.

Now if you have 50 books to sell that are just collecting dust, thats £70 so it all mounts up, but you do also find the odd gem. I have a really naff book from the 80s and it turns out its worth £45 because its rare and I also have another for £40.

Just jot down all the ISBN numbers and go through amazon to see if any are worth anything.

This is close, but not quite right!


if you sell a 1p book, you receive (after all Amazon deductions) £1.41. The minimum 2nd class postage for a paperback is 50p (unless it is really thin) and can get as high as £1.21. So your final profit is between 91p and 20p. Not much I hear you shout.

But as this poster pointed out, if they are all sitting there gathering dust, then anything is better than nothing, and you may be surprised by the price of some books.

Last week I sold a couple of small Star Wars books (purchased from thebook people a couple of years ago for 99p) for £40!!! Now if only there were a few more books worth that.

But hopefully you get the jist, any books over 1p, the amount you receive starts to go up. I hav sold quite a few books for between £1-4 and then you end up building quite a profit! And it is not taxable, as you are not officially making money on these books as they belong to you, and you paid RRP of £6.99 each didnt you ( lol ).

See here from a great continuing thread (make sure you read the first post, it should have all the details you need):

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=224199

Mirtos

I cheat and pop some of my heavier books in the post at work - we're allowed to within reason. That way I can aford to charge less, and sell quicker. Thought it might be worth mentionning in case you can do the same. The pennies do add up! I've made about £300 since i started just over a month ago.xxx

Jonnyh_3

I've recently listed 100 books. I've sold around 20 so far, to cut into my overdraft. i much prefer amazon to ebay as amazon give you 60 day free listings, and don't take any money til the stuff is sold.