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Thanks for the add to the forum. I’ve been listening to the podcast for about a year, and both my wife (who has her own separate eBay business) and I enjoy it and have learned quite a bit.
I’m 61, a retired civil servant who lives in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I have been selling books as a sideline since before there was even an Internet and worked my way through college partly as a book scout.I sold books part-time on eBay and a little on Amazon over the years until my retirement at the end of 2015, and have been selling full-time ever since. I also sell books in other markets, including an antique mall stall (which doesn’t lose money, but whose sales are pretty stagnant), some P2P Facebook book sites, buy-back services, some big yard sales every now and then to purge dud inventory, book shows, gun shows, and science fiction conventions. I’ve been experimenting with using Facebook pages to draw attention to my eBay listings, which is working okay but probably needs more effort on my part.
My inventory is almost 100% books, and I switched from merchant fulfilled book sales on Amazon to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) (in which Amazon stores and ships the seller’s inventory) in 2016. I pretty much ignored eBay when I went full time, due to what I thought was the greater ease of listing and profitability of selling books FBA. In early 2018, after a series of policy changes that made Amazon a whole lot less profitable and and quite a bit more precarious (in terms of the number of suspensions for what appeared to be factors beyond the control of sellers), I began selling books on eBay again, particularly books with higher sales ranks (slower sales rates) whose storage fees Amazon had increased, as well as collectible and rare books that I would prefer to ship and fulfill myself. I also began selling more book lots (which Amazon doesn’t allow) on eBay. I’ve found I like eBay quite a bit more than Amazon, and like not putting all my eggs in one basket. I know several Amazon sellers who had their selling privileges permanently terminated by Amazon, and like to reduce risk.
I currently have about 2500 books in inventory on Amazon (down from about 4000 in August, after the textbook sales spike), and close to 800 on eBay. Despite having fewer books on eBay, some weeks I do better in sales on eBay, as I generally have higher priced books on there and the eBay sales fees and commissions are less than Amazon’s. I’m aiming at a minimum of ~$150/day in gross sales on eBay, averaged out over the week, and am hitting that goal more often than not. As inventory increases, and I set listing goals for each day, it’s becoming more achievable.
I still have a ways to go, and am working on streamlining my listing process more. I appreciate the chance to participate on the forum.
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Hey Jay – Amazon changed its Long Term Storage fee (LTSF) structure last year, they no longer assess fees at the 6 month mark, but at the 1 year mark, when they start charging an (average) of 25¢ per book per month on the 15th of each month. I review all my books approaching that point just before the 15th and make an assessment – if its competing prices are still high and I just think it needs a little more time to find a buyer, I pay the small fee to have it returned (50¢) and list it on eBay. If it circling the drain and there are a lot of other lowball competing offers and I don’t think it’s worth keeping, I pay 15¢ to have it disposed. In practice, most of my long-tails are on eBay and I only list shorter-tailed books on Amazon, so I don’t have many books hit the 1 year point – I think last month it was about 30. There is a small monthly storage fee assessed as well on all items but it’s not much.
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