Selling your stuff on Amazon - Part 6- Advice for newbies in first post

Amazombie

funkyfunkymonkey wrote:

I think the 'big boys' as in 'volume sellers' have different sources to boot fairs, charity shops etc they trade in 'quantity' rather than 'quality' - that is not to say that they don't get the odd 'little gems' in their stock and I'm pretty sure they don't buy from Ebay.
FFM

I believe the volume sellers buy in by the pallet load or they have their sales dropshipped from warehouse sources. I prefer a quiet life

Amazombie

funkyfunkymonkey wrote:

I don't think you can 'make it big' by doing the rounds at boot fairs, jumble sales etc because it is very time consuming for finding stock. I've recently had 2 very bad weekends at bootfairs - none of my regular £20 or £30 books were anywhere to be found - I could only find a handful of £2 - £3 books - so I won't be retiring this month FFM

I think it depends on your family circumstances its obviously more difficult if you have a young family to devote a lot of weekend time to scouring every car boot. Also depends where you live as to whether there are many boot sales or charity shops available. I have lots of free time and dont even consider looking for books as work its just good fun.

Its a bit of a catch 22 because a full time job restricts buying stock and in order to give up a full time job you need the stock.

funkyfunkymonkey

chelltune wrote:

I need to sell off all my Amazon books as I can't store them and have lost interest. Its is not because they are worth nothing, I just don't have the time nor the space as I have set up a website selling new books (see profile!). Do you think its worth eBaying them as collection only or would the local paper be better?

Thanks,

A couple of thoughts.

Ebaying them should give you a good return and if you are a PM you could offer a copy of your open listings ready for them to upload - say that they are currently listed on Amazon. If they contact you by email they could then view your stock and they won't have to do too much 'work' adding your books to their stock if they already sell on Amazon.

Could also be worth posting on the Amazon discussion board asking interested parties to email you, you could then send them a link to your listings so that they can view the stock - maybe accept the highest offer. I've seen this quite a bit recently.

http://forums.prosperotechnologies.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-Uksllconnect&msg=5665.1&maxT=1

http://forums.prosperotechnologies.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-Uksllconnect&msg=5719.1

FFM

funkyfunkymonkey

voodoozoe wrote:

Is it possible that the "big boys" are all long time book dealers who used to have "brick and mortar" bookshops and have just moved with the times??? They may even still have a shop or stall thus having two potential chances to sell one book???

When I posted last night I had a couple of 'big boys' in mind, they regularly post regarding their businesses and levels of success on the Amazon discussion board. Checking their feedback and stock backs up their claims.

Neither of them had B&M shops and have built up their businesses over the past couple of years.

Their main acquisition of stock is not by hand picking but by 'job lot' listing - books not acquired from Ebay.

FFM

Amazombie

funkyfunkymonkey wrote:

When I posted last night I had a couple of 'big boys' in mind, they regularly post regarding their businesses and levels of success on the Amazon discussion board. Checking their feedback and stock backs up their claims. Their main acquisition of stock is not by hand picking but by 'job lot' listing - books not acquired from Ebay. FFM

I wouldnt call them big boys they are more middle...lol but I know a few who list between 10,000 and 20,000 books or CD's and they literally buy and list every single item they come across as long as they are cheap enough to buy.

They do sell large quantities but many are in the 1p to £ 3 range and they do have to work quite long hours to process what they buy and sell.

That isnt for me.

I think a big boy would be one of those with more than 50,000 listed. One of the American sellers has more than 4 million items listed.

funkyfunkymonkey

Amazombie wrote:

I wouldnt call them big boys they are more middle...lol.

Who says size isn't important?

Amazombie wrote:

That isnt for me.

Couldn't agree more.

FFM

Annie021063

katchambers wrote:

Thanks for all your replies AT, FFM and Annie (annie we need to get you an anacronym too!)

I have been considering doing the amazon/ebay thing full time for a while just because there is a good chance I am going to be made redundant next summer - and no big redundancy payment either boo hoo! I really thoroughly enjoy bookselling, I love books, I love reading them and dealing with them and selling them and I would love to become full-time self-employed. Since my husband is the main breadwinner 'so-to-speak' I would only need to earn about £900 which I think with the tax-implications of being full-time self-emplyed is totally do-able - although I could be wrong. Anyway I will keep increasing my stock and keeping track of my figures and hopefully I will see a steady increase in my income so that by July I may actually be able to do it full-time, could be wishful thinking but that is my plan.

I also believe that having fingers in lots of pies helps. I currently make money on books on amazon and ebay, plus I still make a healthy sum from my ebooks on ebay, and my GreenM sales are steadily increasing, plus I am going to try having a stall at a bookfair this weekend and see if that is lucrative or not.

Kat x

Go for it Kat - saw your question to the seller on the amazon chat forum did you manage to get anything from him??
Can't shorten annie - sorry already shortened

Annie021063

BTW whinge really worked as I've had six sales today unheard of for a wednesday. LOng may it continue.

katchambers

Annie021063:Go for it Kat - saw your question to the seller on the amazon chat forum did you manage to get anything from him??

I received a reply from that one but I emailed all of them, no other replies. The guy on there sent me a very long email about everything he is planning to do with his stock and it is all too complicated for me, I just want to buy a pallet.

Amazombie: dont even consider looking for books as work its just good fun.

I totally agree - I really enjoy it too, I could quite happily do it all day!

soolin: but also a few in the £2-£3 area, which should be a nice little profit. It all helps!

I can't decide whether to go back for more..

Yes go back for more - that sounds great!

chelltune: Kat, is it not really difficult keeping track of all your stock when you have it listed on several places?

Well therein lies the problem chell - you've hit it right on the nose! I am working around that problem at the moment, in terms of greenM I have only listed books that are 1p books on amazon and therefore they are only listed on greenM and I keep them in boxes with GM written on it.

On ebay I only have 27 books - shocking right! But it takes sooo long to list them! They are all my duplicates though so technically I have 27 different books but probably 50-60 actual copies, these are all books from a specific pallet that I have in my garage so they are separate too. I am working on increasing the number of books I have on ebay this winter, I am slowly doing a few a week.

Then there is amazon - I have 630 books on there and in the last few weeks I have had trouble finding books, to the extent of giving someone a refund and then coming across it at a later date - very frustrating and I can't continue with that. So I have decided to do what FFN suggested and download a listing report and add all my sku's manually then upload it all, then I will be happy again and it will save me so much time.

Wow this is a long one!

Oh yeah, sold a mobile phone on amazon that I bought for resale, not one of my own and made £60 profit!!! Very happy with that.

Well done on increasing your sales annie!

kat x

G-man_3

Well, just had to do my first refund (lost in the post).
Great way to end the week and I haven't had any sales all week.
Now going to look at claiming from Royal Mail.

Sorry for whingeing.