Books from Amazon

Pots'o'dosh

Although I have advised one of our members to BUY second hand books from Amazon I have discovered a problem when it comes to "selling" books on their site. There is no reminder/warning about what it may cost you to post the item. i.e. my daughter advertised a book for £7. Amazon charged a fee of £2.75 part of which was to assist with postage. The trouble is it then cost her £4.63 to post the item. Result - it "COST" her 38p to sell a book. How then, do people afford to sell books for as little as 55p.

Can anybody enlighten me please.

Dark_Forces

Try using ebay. I think it is cheaper on there. I have never used ebay but if you want to make a little bit of money ebay is the place so I hear.

saintstreaky

The standard charge (for a book) is 86p + 17.5% of the selling price + 0.49 p admin charge on the postage, which comes to (as you say) about £2.70 on a £7 book. She should also have been given an extra £2.26 postage credit, so if the postage was £4.63 she should have been left with £1.88. Admittedly not a lot, but she should have been in credit.

So how to people sell books for (in some cases) 1p? First, if you sell a lot of books you can pay a flat rate (£28.75 a month) rather than the 86p per book. On a 1p book the 17.5% charge is irrelevant. You thus get the £2.26 postage credit only. If you can post the book for less than that (which for a light paperback is likely) you make a profit.

It sounds like your daughter was selling a very heavy book, and Amazon do advise you to take the weight into account when pricing your book.

There is one very important advantage of Amazon over eBay: you don't pay unless you sell the book. Look on eBay and see the number of books that don't sell!

I should point out that I have no association with Amazon, except that I do sell old stuff through them (1 or 2 items a month). I'm very happy with the system. The charges are very clear, but you do need to be aware how much it costs to send heavy books.

Cat72

I sell books on Amazon and ebay.Amazon is good for selling rare or lighweight books only.My heavier books I sell on ebay as you can adjust the postage charge for the buyer to pay. Again ebay has its downside as sometimes you dont get a great price, it all depends on what type of book you are selling. However sometimes the " bidding" element can come into its own as I sold a book I bought for £30 at £ 70. I do prefer ebay as it is faster to sell and once you get to know your marketplace it can pay.If your daughter is to sell on ebay - watch out for the paypal charges as they add a lot on.Thebasic listing price is ok .

raeble

All the information on postage is in the faq's on the amazon site - this is under postage credits

All sellers are required to offer standard delivery; sellers may also elect to include priority postal services. You must cover the postage costs even if the postage credit does not cover all delivery costs. Such discrepancies should be accounted for in the price you set.

Text books are generally very expensive to post at least £5. You should check out the royalmail website https://www.royalmail.com to see how much postage can go up to so that you are aware of the costs.

On ebay you can set what postage costs you like. People do set some really extortionate levels. The benefit with Amazon is that your item gets advertised on the same page as the product that amazon is selling. You do have to watch out for the book sellers who can sell books for little and nothing without having to worry about postage.

alabama_2

i sold a book on Marketplace, went to post it and they said it would cost £7! Luckily the person lived about a 20 minute drive away so I just took it round to her.

My fault for not reading it properly I suppose, but it was still a shocK!

gavhen

natalie685 wrote:

I'm a student and used to sell all my books on amazon --- but realised that amazon took away so much money and didn't leave enough for postage and so from selling a pratically new book which cost me over £40, I was left with very little!

Which is why I went about setting up a website for students to buy and sell their books for free, and later (just to keep up with costs of running the site) a very small fee. There is no listing fee like ebay and no commission like amazon. You also get to set your own postage price.

I launched it only 4 months ago, and had a lot of excellent response since. It's still in its early stages but I've got a lot of PR planned for when uni starts to spread the word so fingers crossed students will wise up to amazons fees.

By the way, the site is https://www.eunibooks.co.uk

added you to my favourites, just need to wait for the book list now :eek:

memo_2

nice site mate, bookmarked for future use!

carol_a_3

How do people pay though? Is it safer to ask for a cheque or Paypal and then wait until it's completely cleared before sending off the book. At least Amazon sort all the collection of money out for you and you can post the book the same day you get the e-mail. It looks like a good idea though, I agree their fees are crippling.

natalie685

Thanks guys,

Please help me by spreading the word, the more students that know about it, the more books are listed and the more chance there will be of finding the books that you need.

Yes Amazon has their own payment system so you are safer. However ebay doesn't. Millions of people pay for things they've bought through paypal/cheque/bank transfer and then people send them out through the post. And look how successful ebay is ... so should work alright.

filigree_2

There is a lengthy thread on MSE Old Style on this topic:

Selling books on Amazon for more profit

Amazon's charges are clearly explained, and for advice on postage costs you can go to www.royalmail.com. The best advice I can give is WEIGH THE BOOK so you don't get any nasty surprises at the Post Office!

Don't forget to factor in the cost of packaging, I buy cheapo Jiffy bags from Poundland.