selling your stuff on Amazon - part 7 - advice for newbies in the first post

GoldenEye

I'm not a book seller (I sell mostly video games) but I am curious. When I sell video games I usually aim for the top 1000 ranking games. I looked at some books and rankings go into the millions. What would be a sellable ranking for books? I know rankings are highly in-accurate but I use it as a benchmark and it seems to work for me.

funkyfunkymonkey

GoldenEye wrote:

I'm not a book seller (I sell mostly video games) but I am curious. When I sell video games I usually aim for the top 1000 ranking games. I looked at some books and rankings go into the millions. What would be a sellable ranking for books? I know rankings are highly in-accurate but I use it as a benchmark and it seems to work for me.

Hi GE

This has been discussed on the Amazon Board from time to time and it's bit of a black art.

From what I can recall if a book is ranked 1,000,000 Amazon will sell maybe 1 per year.

However, I often sell unranked books.

I know that if I list a 1000 book lowish it will sell within a day or 2, unless it is a 1p book because it is so popular.

My last 15 sales were at the following ranks and were listed in the month shown, not sure if it indicates anything

868k - Aug05
202k - May06
47k - Jun06
447k - Sep06
None - May05
955k - May05
107k - Feb05
1.7k - Jan07 (PS2 game) - sold 2 of these already
1185k - Jul06
1.8k - Jun06 (1p book)
None - Feb06
24k - Sep06
2813k - Jul06
160k - Apr06
220k - Mar06

I should add that I am rarely the lowest price.

Don't know if it answers your question though.

FFM

teapot2

Hi Goldeneye, just had a look at the rankings on the books I've sold in the last few days, they were;

5,341; 27,078; 90,427; 720,459 & 749,932 so none of them wildly popular :rotfl:

I guess it doesn't matter so much with books because some will be quite specialised ie maybe academic so won't be best sellers also they don't go out of date in the way that games might do as they get updated [of course new editions of books are published which has an effect].

I guess if you want to sell quickly you might go for high ranking popular books but then there is a chance that lots of copies will be listed? Must admit I've never taken much notice of book rankings though I sometimes look at the Amazon Top 100 bestsellers to see what is selling.

Be interesting to see how you get on if you use rankings for your stock of books though.

funkyfunkymonkey

teapot2 wrote:

Hi Goldeneye, just had a look at the rankings on the books I've sold in the last few days, they were;

5,341; 27,078; 90,427; 720,459 & 749,932 so none of them wildly popular :rotfl:

I guess it doesn't matter so much with books because some will be quite specialised ie maybe academic so won't be best sellers also they don't go out of date in the way that games might do as they get updated [of course new editions of books are published which has an effect].

I guess if you want to sell quickly you might go for high ranking popular books but then there is a chance that lots of copies will be listed? Must admit I've never taken much notice of book rankings though I sometimes look at the Amazon Top 100 bestsellers to see what is selling.

Be interesting to see how you get on if you use rankings for your stock of books though.

Hi TP

You make some very valid points there. If you check out the larger sellers like Aphrohead or Wickedwendi they sell alot of low ranking new books but have to operate at very low margins 'cos they are always undercutting each other to be the lowest priced - whilst they shift alot of books they also have to work hard for their money.

FFM

GoldenEye

Thanks FFM and Teapot. I appreciate you guys checking the rankings of your sales. From what you have posted, It seems that rankings may not be too important.

I have a few engineering books from University that I want to sell. I bought them approximately 4-6 years ago and they have increased in price since. The thing that puts me off is postage costs. When I started out on Marketplace I calculated the postage for one book at £7! After Amazon's cut I'll make money but not as much as I think is acceptable. Also, Amazon offer free postage so they are more attractive to the consumer.

I assume most small sellers list small books/paperbacks for postage reasons? I'm not clued up on books (with the exception of engineering books and some medical texts). I would probably only consider selling small books. I have only sold one book on Marketplace (It had about 20 pages and it went for £8) and the postage only cost 65p. That's the sort of risk I don't mind taking!

Thanks again folks. There's some really good advice on these pages!

funkyfunkymonkey

GoldenEye wrote:

Thanks FFM and Teapot. I appreciate you guys checking the rankings of your sales. From what you have posted, It seems that rankings may not be too important.

I have a few engineering books from University that I want to sell. I bought them approximately 4-6 years ago and they have increased in price since. The thing that puts me off is postage costs. When I started out on Marketplace I calculated the postage for one book at £7! After Amazon's cut I'll make money but not as much as I think is acceptable. Also, Amazon offer free postage so they are more attractive to the consumer.

I assume most small sellers list small books/paperbacks for postage reasons? I'm not clued up on books (with the exception of engineering books and some medical texts). I would probably only consider selling small books. I have only sold one book on Marketplace (It had about 20 pages and it went for £8) and the postage only cost 65p. That's the sort of risk I don't mind taking!

Thanks again folks. There's some really good advice on these pages!

Hi GE

I used this guy before Christmas to deliver a heavy book, it only cost £3.99

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/UK-2-3-DAY-PARCEL-DELIVERY-SERVICE-30KG-MAX-3-99_W0QQitemZ200065925399QQihZ010QQcategoryZ121879QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

He was busy and subbed the work out to Parcel Force but his communication was brilliant inspite of the amount of work he was pulling in - I would defo use him again.

FFM

wendym

How about this response from a seller who hadn't done his sums:

1 out of 5: "Seller backed out of transaction after full payment made"
Date: 2006/12/22 Rated by Buyer: greatshex

Seller Response: "Postage paid by amazon.co.uk was one tenth of what it would take to send such a heavy book to the USA from the UK and I would have made a big loss by ''spending'' money instead of making it, selling the book! I emailed the buyer about explaining this to which he replied by giving a poor feedback!" Date: 2006/12/22

Esoog

Well 2nd sale today, a dvd again, only made £4 profit but its better than nothing I suppose

larmy16

wendym wrote:

How about this response from a seller who hadn't done his sums:

1 out of 5: "Seller backed out of transaction after full payment made"
Date: 2006/12/22 Rated by Buyer: greatshex

Seller Response: "Postage paid by amazon.co.uk was one tenth of what it would take to send such a heavy book to the USA from the UK and I would have made a big loss by ''spending'' money instead of making it, selling the book! I emailed the buyer about explaining this to which he replied by giving a poor feedback!" Date: 2006/12/22

Yes check your weight and price twice, just as a carpenter measures twice and cuts once!

jo_b_2

Esoog wrote:

Well 2nd sale today, a dvd again, only made £4 profit but its better than nothing I suppose

£4 profit on one item is quite impressive! I'm normally happy with about 50p.