Selling books online

Tip_Top_Hair

I have recently tried a website called Sell My Book
Quick and efficient.

Dinah93

We had a massive book clearout recently, used Momox, SellitBack,Ziffit, Zapper and WeBuyBooks. Prices varied massively, but by using all the sites we could trade in most books to someone, even fiction. Lots of follow up offers form several sites too to trade in more books with a bonus 10% etc. Took a while but worth doing as made nearly £280 overall.

nessauk

Anyone else find it a struggle to sell fiction books? I've tried a lot of the sites, and most of them are not taking them.

droopsnoot

The trouble is, most fiction sells in quite large numbers so there's very little value there. I read a lot of fiction, generally buy from either the library sale table, car boot sales and the like, and I pay between 50p and £1 per book, usually at the lower end of that scale. So it's too difficult for them to move them on, I would imagine.

soolin

droopsnoot wrote: »

The trouble is, most fiction sells in quite large numbers so there's very little value there. I read a lot of fiction, generally buy from either the library sale table, car boot sales and the like, and I pay between 50p and £1 per book, usually at the lower end of that scale. So it's too difficult for them to move them on, I would imagine.

I agree entirely. Even when books were my main business I rarely found any fiction ones worth selling online , the postage costs just made them too expensive. I can go into Tesco today and buy a 'chart' paperback at 2 for £7 , so £3.50 each, that same book to post would cost a minimum of £2.85 with the Post Office or £2.75 with MyHermes- which leaves nothing really to cover the cost of the book plus any packaging or selling fees.

Most of my local charity shops are becoming reluctant to take large quantities of fiction now and most tend to pile them high and sell for donations only- or 4 for £1 type of thing.

DebtFreeWannaBE

My uncle started just trying to clear out some space and began selling books and movies on ebay. Then he realised how easily they sell and set up an ebay shop and peruses yard sales and second hand stores. He often buys a book for 25 cents and sells it for $4.

The thing is that you need to account for shipping fees and some e-commerce platforms like ebay have other fees for using them. Just have to make sure that you calculate your costs properly to ensure that you are turning a profit.

lincroft1710

DebtFreeWannaBE wrote: »

My uncle started just trying to clear out some space and began selling books and movies on ebay. Then he realised how easily they sell and set up an ebay shop and peruses yard sales and second hand stores. He often buys a book for 25 cents and sells it for $4.

The thing is that you need to account for shipping fees and some e-commerce platforms like ebay have other fees for using them. Just have to make sure that you calculate your costs properly to ensure that you are turning a profit.

Did you read the post previous to yours?

People have been doing this for years in the UK, but the bottom has now dropped out of the market.

economum

If you're a taxpayer you can donate them to Oxfam and get some nectar points - only worth pennies but you won't lose money and you're helping a great cause
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/donate-goods/tag-your-bag/nectar-points

soolin

DebtFreeWannaBE wrote: »

My uncle started just trying to clear out some space and began selling books and movies on ebay. Then he realised how easily they sell and set up an ebay shop and peruses yard sales and second hand stores. He often buys a book for 25 cents and sells it for $4.

The thing is that you need to account for shipping fees and some e-commerce platforms like ebay have other fees for using them. Just have to make sure that you calculate your costs properly to ensure that you are turning a profit.

The book market is completely different in the UK, it died about 6 years ago for me. THe US seems to be following us though , albeit a few years behind if the sellers I still talk to are to be believed. For the UK postage costs are a big issue, and also the fact that we have easy access to stores that stock discount books and can undercut the second hand postal market. Your $4 sale would not even cover basic postage here in the UK .

PRe October 2010 I could easily sell 70 books a month without even trying, then boom, overnight the market died.

On any commuter train here you will rarely see anyone reading a book, everyone uses e readers, tablets or phones.

watson_jen

I've never had much success selling books online. Perhaps you'd have more luck at a carboot?