Selling Your Stuff on Amazon Part 11 - Advice for newbies in first two posts

soolin

bluebell_lily wrote: »

Hi, I am new to amazon and this forum. I have recently sold some textbooks and have made a loss due to not working out the postage. How is it possible to sell heavy textbooks from uni without making too much of a loss (considering that most of the textbooks were new when first purchased and therefore paid full price for them?

Welcome to the forum!

A casual seller probably can't compete against the big sellers and it is always worth having a set of scales and an RM leaflet to hand when listing books on Amazon.

Pro sellers get an additional 83p per sale but the big listers often also have accounts with Royal mail or other shippers and get a very discounted rate due to the number of books they send.

I've got a new batch of books here around 50% of which are text books and I suspect that I will actually only list half of them and charity shop the rest due to pricing. Second hand prices rarely bear any resembalance to the initial cost, I hav efor instance got a book I am trying to track down for my son at uni and so far the only one I can find is £128 and the original cover price was less than £20 but it is now out of print. other books I have already bought I've paid £5-£6 for (in total with postage) where the original costs were £50+ each.

teapot2

bluebell_lily wrote: »

Hi, I am new to amazon and this forum. I have recently sold some textbooks and have made a loss due to not working out the postage. How is it possible to sell heavy textbooks from uni without making too much of a loss (considering that most of the textbooks were new when first purchased and therefore paid full price for them?

Hello, welcome and sorry to hear you didn't make a profit. One problem is that you are listing against big sellers who will have a PPI account with Royal Mail which means they will get cheaper average postal price so can sell some big heavy books for less and still make a profit. The only thing to do really is build up good feedback, describe books in detail and don't try and price match lowest prices but factor in postage and what to charge to still make a profit. Your books may take time to sell - depends on how popular they are. also watch out for newer editions being published, this can happen yearly with some courses :eek:. When you list a book Amazon tells you what you will receive after their lisitng fees so use this info to set prices taking postage into account. Hope all this makes sense.

Good luck

teapot2

Ooops snap Soolin - I'm obviously slower at typing

BTW glad you found your book - laundry of course why didn't you think of looking there first :rolleyes:

I recently 'lost' a book I'd sold despite my system which doesn't often fail. Took books off numerous shelfs and out of boxes, fumed and swore - went out for a walk to clear my head and there it was on my return right where it should have been [or was the selling fairy playing tricks?]

teapot2

tirlittan wrote: »

I've sold my first book on amazon! Only listed them 6 days ago, so did really not expect anything to go this soon. It's posted as well so know exactly how much profit I've made.

Well done tirlittan, you do realise you'll become addicted to those 'Sold Dispatch Now' emails. Will this inspire you to list more books?

Teapot

bluebell_lily

Thanks soolin and teapot2.:j The problem was that I priced these costly textbooks at half price or less thinking they will sell fast (and some of them have) and therefore postage didn't take account of. Thanks for your advice.

soolin

teapot2 wrote: »

Ooops snap Soolin - I'm obviously slower at typing

BTW glad you found your book - laundry of course why didn't you think of looking there first :rolleyes:

I recently 'lost' a book I'd sold despite my system which doesn't often fail. Took books off numerous shelfs and out of boxes, fumed and swore - went out for a walk to clear my head and there it was on my return right where it should have been [or was the selling fairy playing tricks?]

I know, that is exactly what happened. I must have actually stepped over the pile of books when I went off on a panic. I did the same a while ago, I sold an old VHS tape and got a fair bit for it, but the video just wasn't where it should be. I actually turned the entire cupboard out and went through all of them and couldn't find it. Last month I went through the remaining VHS tapes basically to remove the cheapies from Amazon and there at the front of the cupboard was the missing tape..now down to 50p of course so only fit to charity shop. I think I agree that the selling fairy can be mischevious!

I've got piles of books here to list and may be collecting more tonight, so fingers crossed for a few nice ones.

soolin

bluebell_lily wrote: »

Thanks soolin and teapot2.:j The problem was that I priced these costly textbooks at half price or less thinking they will sell fast (and some of them have) and therefore postage didn't take account of. Thanks for your advice.

If you come across more that are too cheap to list on Amazon check them out on ebay as well as sometimes (only sometimes) they will sell there for more and you can set your own postage.

Good luck.. I started out with a few dozen books and now have around 1300 listed, it gets to you !

Jenna_Appleseed

daveoc22 wrote: »

I've been selling my unwanted Region 1 dvd's on amazon for a couple of years and over that time I've manged to sell several.

I looked at my live lists today and I've got four region 1 dvd's showing as live and at the lowest price

BUT, when I look at each of the items on amazon my ones aren't listed.

If I look at my live items list I can click on 'edit' and go to the item and change it, but still nothing appears on amazon itself.

I can only think it's some sort of restriction on selling Region 1 dvd's, but then why are the items showing as live and at the lowest price.

Anyone any ideas?

Are you sure you're not accidentally looking at the region 2 versions?

arkonite_babe

soolin wrote: »

If you come across more that are too cheap to list on Amazon check them out on ebay as well as sometimes (only sometimes) they will sell there for more and you can set your own postage.

Good luck.. I started out with a few dozen books and now have around 1300 listed, it gets to you !

I sold another 2 books yesterday :j
Not worried about making a profit, my hubby is just glad to see my book collection going out the door, albeit very slowly :rolleyes:

rare_stuff

arkonite_babe wrote: »

I sold another 2 books yesterday :j
Not worried about making a profit, my hubby is just glad to see my book collection going out the door, albeit very slowly :rolleyes:

It must be nice to be in such a position where you can sell at a loss, but if the objective is just simply to get your book collection out of the door why not just take them to the charity shop?

Meanwhile I pity any new sellers who are also trying to sell copies of the same books you are and price matches against yours thinking a profit is possible.