selling your stuff on Amazon - part 9 - advice for newbies in the first 2 posts

teapot2

saffronflowers wrote: »

Phew got to the end of this wonderfu thread!!!!! Well, I too have decided to join you amazonian people, listed last night and have already sold one!!! Lots are quite heavy gardening referance books, I know I will lose out on postage but it will free up space in my house.

I am sure that I will hit many pitfalls, but here goes, and one day many moons ago, I can buy a 1967 Beetle!!!!

Couple of questions,

Do academci books sell well?

What hardbacks do well or should I stick to paperbooks?

Thank you muchly

SFx

Hey saffronFlowers welcome and congrats on your first sale - your addiction starts here

Generally academic books do sell well BUT make sure you are selling the latest edition otherwise you may get some buyers asking for a refund even if you have made it clear that there are later ones in the listing you do 'cos often they'll buy without reading. Generally the best for selling are fairly recent current edition ones although I've been selling some of my Uni books from 1990 recently and they have gone for more than I paid new :j :j best thing is to check out via the ISBN and the product info will usually have a box that says what editions it is published in.

Not sure re the gardening books if you mean that you'll be selling them at a loss? If so, I'd be tempted to ebay them or even put them in a charity shop. It is a drawback with Amazon that the postage is set but you can adjust your price to reflect the extra unless that makes you totally uncompetitive. Don't forget to factor in Amazon fees when you are calculating what you'll receive from a sale before postage.

With general, popular hardbacks it depends on demand and how heavy etc they are. Its easy to underprice and try to compete wth mega sellers but not worth it as you can lose heavily on postage. Unless its quite a high price or relatively light I tend to avoid hardbacks but others may have different advice. Best to check it out before listing and you can always come on here for some advice if you are not sure about something. Also have you looked at the following thread? It might give you some more ideas http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=174585&page=13

ALSO, don't forget this is thread 9 - there are another 8 to plough through :rotfl: :rotfl:

Good luck
Teapot

saffronflowers

Thanks teapot

Well sold my second last night

All my gardening books were bought years ago, many were presents as they were so expensive so what ever I make will be a profit.

Thanks for tips, and yup I have read the other thread - will try and find another month to read the other 8 threads!!!

SFX

soolin

Most of my gardening books went to a charity shop. A quick look at pricing and the Amazon Sales rank convced me not to store them when I was unlikely to make mor than 20-30p profit. The problem is, especially with some of the RHS books is that they weigh almost 2kg so will cost almost £8 to post.

Just recently I have been looking more at the ranking of books and the rank does really affect how I price my books and whether I bother listing them. Last week I got a lot of cookery books, weighed quite a bit but very high in the ranks, most of them 6000 or less, and I've sold 3 so far in a week. Due to the cost I'm only making about £2 a go profit, but the quick turnover makes it useful to up my sales.

I'm fascinated by ranking actually, came across this one today:

Evil Star (Power of Five) (Paperback) isbn 1844286207 , currently only 231 in books but still selling at £1.37 used. This is the sort of book you are likely to pick up at a car boot or school fare as someone will have bought it new, read it and donated it.

wilf55

hmm if you didnt live far away would have bought the gardening books myself for a small amount but probably much more than the profit you would have made just couldnt afford the postage cost that they are likely to incur

could you do a couple of job lots on ebay perhaps pick up only to maximise your profits saffron seems such a shame

soolin

By the strangest co incidence I have been looking to sell some of my books off in bulk for while. Two lots in particular have been 'difficult' as I know they are collectable but they don't all have isbn's and I can't find the exact editions. They are all old football books and the publisher doesn't turn up any hits at all online.

Last week I advertised them in the local paper, but the ad did not go in. This morning I heard Alan Ball had died, and since some of the books relate to him, I thought I would try them again on Ebay (they have been on ebay before with no takers). Yet within minutes of me deciding to do that I get a call from someone who will be here in 5 minutes to buy the lot. He says he knew about the advert, even though it wasn't printed.

If I'd mentioned some of them were Alan Ball books, then I could understand the co incidence, but I've just listed them as 'old' with no real explanation as I only got 9 words for free .

Hopefully he'll take both batches and that will free up some room (I was selling 10 for £5 in two lots). Next I'm going to do the same with my interior design glossies.

Wilf, if I still had them you'd have been welcome to my gardening books for free, but then I suppose the liklihood of us living close enough for collection was unlikely!

katchambers

Hi everyone,

How are you all doing? Sales good?
It has slowed down for me over the last week or so, and it seems that way for alot of people on the amazon seller connection too.

I received an email from viking a few days ago with a 20% discount, I am fairly certain it is not just for me, I have posted the code on the discount forum, here is a link to it:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=4996956#post4996956

You get 20% off everything and a free gift (there is a choice of 4 depending on how much you spend). Seems like a good time to stock up on padded envelopes. With this offer it makes the D1 (paperback size) only 8p each, which is pretty good.

Kat x

lswwong

The gods must be smiling on me .....

Just sold another DVD - I listed it ages ago on Amazon with no takers. This time round, it was sold within days. I seem to be selling stuff quickly recently. Must look for more stuff at home to sell!

(Also need to nip round to my office's post room to see if they are throwing out any bubble wrap.)

wilf55

thanks soolin thing is i am that busy trying to make money doing the flylady challange listing on ebay amazon car boots etc etc i havent got time for anything let alone read they would probably be sat there in my must read sometime pile balanced on the computer desk growing daily just waiting to topple over

frivolous_fay

I just realised that I've been selling on Amazon for almost exactly a year. Curious to know how much of an impact it has really made on my finances, I dug around and messed around with my calculator. For anyone interested, here are the details I thought were noteworthy

Total sales, across 132 items (mainly books, a few CDs and one or two games)
£749.97
Total fees:
£233.83
Remaining 'me money':
£516.14 :j

Total feedback in 132 transactions: 33! (All positive, happily, touch wood!)

I'm delighted to note that if I had decided to go Pro (as I was considering early on) I would have paid at least £345 in fees during the same period. Thanks for those here who talked me out of it

I have chosen not to calculate how much I spent on P&P! (My records aren't too organised! )

Average £3.90 per item after fees (before P&P) The highest sales would have been for PC games or recent PSP games.

Best fortnight ever: end of April / beginning of May 2006, £68, (out of a total of around £97!) 15 items.
I put this down to listing loads of books when I started and people buying the better ones! Since then I have been listing in the occasional batch, and also dribs and drabs. I also went through lazy periods and didn't get round to relisting for a while. Despite this... I didn't have a month without any sales at all.

I would say that 90% of my sales have been for items of my own, and the remainder were optimistic charity shop buys (not all of which worked out in my favour! )

Hope this hasn't been to boring to read - interested to see if anyone else has noticed any patterns

wigglebeena

Why don't people stick heavy books in an Ebay shop and fix their own postage, then just wait for the right buyer? Even with gallery it's only 6p a month per book? (Have I got me facts straight?)