selling books on Amazon - tips for more profit

mike55_2

hi Cath S, it's a great topic isn't it? like a magnet. i'd be lost without all the posters on here some of them mother me

speaking for myself, when the half price offer was on about changing to a pro-merchant, i gave it a miss because i can't trust myself to cancel it if it falls below the required level. or if i need a break.

as for doing it for an income? i'd do it, and i definately know the missus would. then i'd apply to be a pro-merchant.

neither myself or my wife felt that good about selling books from charity shop buys initially, but now the shops are over the moon because we spend a lot, take in unwanted but new clothing, and do our bit for recycling.

i'd give it a go, especially as you have a career that you might be able to return to?

purplepatch

I only went pro-merchant as they were doing a special offer - half price for 3 months and you are able to cancel at the end of that time. The offer finished on 30 November though.

In those 10 days I've already hit 20 sales, so will see how it goes - perhaps will keep it when the 3 months elapse....

Edited to say that it was 17 items during the half price offer, so double that now unfortunately.

apprentice_tycoon

Hi Cath - thank you for your kind words - it's astonishing to think that someone would sit and read all the posts - good - but humbling!

I think that it's a great idea to see if you can do this to boost your income and if selling a few books means that you can work part time not full time then that must be good.

The full price pro merchant rate is £28.75 and you save 86 pence on each item sold so if you can sell more than around 33 items you're on top - basically one sale a day is how I see it.
I had just the normal fees till September and had around 150 books listed (I never really got past selling just books) and sold 2 or 3 a week but I thought that I'd give it a go just to push myself a bit more and see if I could crank up a gear, I had been just coasting along and only buying books in if they really hit me in the face.

From then on I started to look at the situation differently and actively looked out for books, it was still in the bootsale season so I did really well with that, on one Sunday I bought 18 books that were from a course in marketing and media, they were 20 pence each, I listed them as soon as I got home and the average price of them was around £8.00, I have sold around half of them so far, I rarely came home from a boot sale with less than 20 books.

Each time I go into town I mooch around the charity shops and usually pick up 4 or 5, I have a pretty good idea of what will sell, it's not foolproof but as has been said before novels are really not the best idea unless it was what you wanted to read anyway and reference books of all kinds are often the best ones to choose.

I now have 300 books for sale and I'm hitting the target of selling over the 33 per month and my average pay out from Amazon is around £220.00 per month, out of that comes the expenses of buying the books, packing, postage and flippin tax as I'm registered at self employed because of my 'real job' of ebay ( I do the odd mystery shopping job as well)
I haven't yet sold a book that's been really expensive, I think that £20.00 has been the best so far but it's a steady little income and I would recommend the pro merchant status if you need a kick in the pants to change your attitude from 'hobby' to 'work', because you have a target to reach it makes you think differently.

If you decide to jump don't forget that you can cancel at any time and the most you will be down is the subscription for that month. Perhaps you need to stock up on books before the baby is born?

BoltonMinx

Good luck with it Cath, I went pro-merchant on the last day of the offer and so far, so good, especially since I only sell 1p books at the mo

Cath_S

Morning All :wave:

Thanks for replying to lil old me, some encouraging thoughts there. I'm thinking at the mo that I may just see how the rest of my stock goes for the next month or so and stock up on books from charity shops, xmas fetes and then go pro-merchant in the new year. I fear that my current stock will be going out in dribs & drabs until then and it won't be worth the charges.

I'm enjoying my maternity leave and I'm not sure whether I want to go back to work. Baby is 4 months old now. She's a little angel and sleeps through 12 hours at night and has about 5 hours of naps in the day. I'm sooooo lucky . She's giving me lots of time to read very long threads on MSE! Anyhow boast over , If I returned to work 3 days a week I'd come out with about £400 after paying for baby's childcare costs so I need to see over the next 6 months if I can get anywhere near that amount. I think it's one thing selling all my own unwanted stuff and another buying stuff in to see if it turnovers. The next 6 months will be interesting......

Here's a thought.......As I jumped on this bandwagon a couple of weeks to late, maybe Amazon will be kind to us and offer pro-merchant at half price again in the new year, an encouragement to those who receive naff books as xmas presents

Hope everyone has a profitable Sunday :beer:

larmy16

I have bought a couple of cd's off amazon recently. Last night I was idly flicking through the site and went in to check my recent orders and there awaiting delivery was something I had not ordered, but was going to be delivered after Christmas!

Luckily I was able to cancel it - but I just cannot think how it got there????

It was for a book I had never heard of.

cazmeg

I was very annoyed yesterday. I received a 'sold despatch now' email from Amazon for a Carry on Christmas video. this was welcome as sales have slowed down for me recently. However I then received an email from the buyer cancelling the order, as Amazon had informed him of a delivery date of possibly 3rd Jan! I have replied ensuring the buyer that the video will be despatched immediately, but have yet to hear from him. Has anyone else experienced this? Good luck to everyone for Christmas sales. :rudolf:

purplepatch

cazmeg wrote:

I was very annoyed yesterday. I received a 'sold despatch now' email from Amazon for a Carry on Christmas video. this was welcome as sales have slowed down for me recently. However I then received an email from the buyer cancelling the order, as Amazon had informed him of a delivery date of possibly 3rd Jan! I have replied ensuring the buyer that the video will be despatched immediately, but have yet to hear from him. Has anyone else experienced this? Good luck to everyone for Christmas sales. :rudolf:

There was a Carry On Christmas DVD given away free with the Daily Express on Saturday just gone. Think that might be your explanation!!

Given that you should have this person's money, you could just send it forthwith, unless you're feeling charitable and will let them cancel - in which case you'll have to refund him.

purplepatch

I've been given a collection of around 30 immaculate unread books by someone I know who is moving and was going to take them to the charity shop. Thing is that the isbns aren't listed on amazon as they were part of an offer in the Daily Mail (not free giveaways, you had to purchase them). Is there any way of getting amazon to put them on - I'm a pro-merchant seller and thought I'd read something to suggest this could be done. But then again perhaps I've dreamt it!

carol_a_3

If you can find the closest match to the ones you've got on Amazon, same format, number of pages etc it's possible to list yours as long as you state clearly in your description any differences eg: different photo on cover , year of issue, ISBN number etc. You may sell them but there are probably loads already on there.