The one circumstance where a bookseller can make more money on eBay than
Its inevitable if you do medium-to-high volume sales on
Some would donate them to a thrift store. Some would just recycle them. Both are fine, but there is another option most booksellers overlook.
The one way to make money from books on eBay
Most booksellers believe you can’t make money selling used books on eBay. They’re mostly right, but they don’t know one way in which it is profitable. There is a circumstance in which selling books on eBay will get you more than if you tried to sell the same books on
Here it is:
- You have a medium-to-large lot of books (20+)
and
- They are on the same subject, or in the same category.
When both of these apply, that’s a recipe for eBay profit. Here’s where I’m going with this….
Ebay users will bid on large book lots of a single subject
And they will often pay more than if you sold the books individually on
- You will find buyers more quickly than on
Amazon , and- - These buyers will spend more than those on
Amazon .
Here’s why
Essentially, the eBay buyers are paying you for grouping the books for them. They will bid on your lot of books on UFOs, and bid high, because you have taken the work to aggregate the books and put them together into one tidy auction, where all they have to do is click and in one to two weeks a giant box of books (on a subject they are passionate about) will arrive at their door.
They could comb through
What the eBay bidder doesn’t know or care about
Of course, they don’t care that this lot of 50 books on the JFK assassination are just your throwaways, each ranked worse than 2 million on
How I organize my throwaways for eBay
First, if its a mainstream book that there are literally thousands of on
From there, I look for patterns to emerge. Did the person I bought 500 books from on Craigslist have a lot of titles on boating? I start to put the boat books in their own box. Over the months, I start to see subject-specific lots form. And when I have enough titles, they go up on eBay.
I’ve done this many many times and am almost always glad I took the time. Just remember the crucial factors:
- Sell in lots (20+).
- Group by narrow subject matter.
That’s the secret to selling books on eBay.
Also, claim your free book:
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Hi Peter. first off, thanks for posting your experiences and great tips. when selling in lots, on ebay, have you experimented between auction and buy it now and at what price point have you found best to start at ( listing in either category )?
Good question. Generally when I eBay my leftovers, I just want them out the door. So I’ll choose the auction format and let “the market” decide what they’re worth. I’ll start my auctions at a penny to let bidding-momentum build. Because anything I put on eBay is essentially worthless to me, anything I get I consider to be gravy and I’m happy to just get it out the door to someone who will appreciate them more than the recycling center.
Hi Peter. I’m new to FBA bookselling and am curious about how you handle ‘leftovers’ in general. You mention a 500 book lot, where 10% are FBA worthy…let’s pretend you paid $100 for the lot:
How do you calculate your cost of goods sold? Do you say you paid $2/book for the 50 sellable? Or do you say they are $.2/book for all?
What do you do with the leftovers that can’t be bundled? Do you donate them? If so, do you keep the receipt and take th etax writeoff?
Sorry to bombard you with questions – it is difficult to find out how others are handling these details…
Thanks, Josh
I don’t get concerned with calculating cost of goods or many other metrics. I just keep my margins high and the rest takes care of itself.
As for leftovers, I’ll list them as a lot on Craigslist and price them to move.
Thank you for this advice. I enjoy reading your posts and benefiting from your insights. When you post your eBay auctions, do you list what individual titles are in the lot? Or perhaps include photos showing the titles? Or do you just let the buyer enjoy the surprise?
I take good photos that show many of the book titles, but don’t list individually.
Just want to let you know that I am excited to be using Zen Arbitrage! First shipment to Prime goes out tomorrow cost less than $400, Prime listing prices at almost $1700….all textbooks…Have another inbound pile coming this week w/about the same cost/sale ratio.
I plan some single subject searches next, e.g, self improvement, Catholicism, sports biographies, etc….
I think this will be a real money maker. Beats the heck out of chasing garage sales all Summer, but I will probably do that, too!
Thanks for all!
Question for you. I have not sold on eBay, but I have had an account for several years. If I sold a Lot of books on eBay wouldn’t the weight (say 40 pounds) eat up any profits? How do you account for the weight of the books so it wouldn’t affect profits. With Amazon we utilize FBA for heavy/large items and we use Merchant Fulfillment for our lighter weight products.