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Hi guys… i’ve recently joined this website. I came across Scavenger Life when I googled “how to sell books on Ebay.”… ive gotten tons of info and tips listening to the podcasts and watching the videos … thanks to all the contributors!
So i’ve had book listings up for about a 2 months and haven’t sold a single book. I keep going into my listings and tweaking prices. I think I am priced middle range for past Sold prices.
I switched several of my listings to auctions with a starting bid of 99cents. Many have gotten NO action/offers and i have some that have nibble bids… far below what sold records show.
The titles I have listed do show many past sales in the preceding months.
Am I just being impatient? Should I stick to an avg. of past prices and just keep listing them when they expire waiting for a buyer with a buy it now price?
Also, if you offer economy shipping, is it o.k. to just use media mail with no tracking? I used to sell a lot of books on Amazon and always used Media Mail and only had maybe one complaint out of every 50 books sold damaged during shipping.
So many questions! Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me! Thank you. Have a peaceful day! liz
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What type of books are you selling on Ebay? There are so many variables that could explain why you are not getting sales – condition, price, your feedback, the quantity, the types of books, etc,. There’s not really enough information provided to say why you may not be getting sales.
Depending on what the books are, they might do better on Amazon.
I always have tracking on Media Mail. It may not always work, but it’s your best bet to win cases for “not received” cases opened by buyers.
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Almasty,
Thank you for your response! I have only 3 (100%) feedback scores since my account is new. My lack of feedback hasn’t prevented me from selling other (non-book) items since I provide a lot photos and give as much info as I can. Although the few items I have sold so far have been unique, collectible items.
The books i have listed are a mix of new children’s fiction (in LOTS) and older, collectible, vintage titles. for example… https://www.ebay.com/itm/362532052741 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/362532025969
Anyway, I posted this title https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Tenement-Tree-by-Kate-Seredy-1959-Hardcover-Collectible-First-Edition/362532030841 as an auction after having it listed for buy it now for $25.99. Much cheaper than other examples. I only found one sold at that price and that one had no dust jacket. There is some activity on this so we’ll see where it ends up.
I guess vintage titles may take longer to sell even if priced appropriately. People need to be looking for them. I am also going to try to add more keywords in my descriptions. Maybe that would help.
Also, THANK YOU for the info about adding tracking to Media mail! I didn’t realize you could add it.
Thank you for your response! Liz
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Books are usually super long tail. There’s also a whole lot of competition. You’re selling against the giant warehouse sellers that sell for 1-cent a book + shipping on Amazon.
I cant imagine being purely a book seller. We do sell the random book we find that seems to be rare, but we know it’ll take a long time to sell.
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Jay… thank you! I think I have to really think about a price that works… set it… and keep the postings up for as long as it takes… perhaps occasionally tweaking if necessary.
I will have to raid my seemingly endless supply of stuff around my house to get some more sales.
Ive started stopping at the local thrift stores but the places are filled with dealers walking around on their phones checking prices of everything. I need to learn more before i start purchasing to sell.
thanks! Liz
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I think that some of my comments below are redundant because other people answered by the time I was ready, but I’ll post it anyway. Hopefully, I’m adding something additional to the conversation:
You should purchase your shipping labels through eBay. They will automatically add tracking, which they upload for you and your buyer to see. You can print out the labels on plain paper and then tape them to the box, or you can buy 8×11.5 pages with two stickers per sheet.
eBay doesn’t provide a discount on Media mail, but they do for priority, FedEx, and UPS.
The books that you are listing are long tail. There are book collectors out there, but not in quantity. I sell lots of books, and most don’t sell for months, even years. Jay & Ryanne’s motto is “list it and forget it”. You create your listing, put in the price that is reasonable, and just let it sit until it is sold.
You can also check out the prices occasionally just to see if something has gone down or up in price. But, as long as you have storage space, keep listing other stuff and don’t sweat the things that are still listed.
When a listing is 16 months old or so, eBay will flag it as stale. You can just end it and relist it, or perhaps take a look and adjust the listing as needed.
Just a couple of suggestions:
I signed up my kids for PJ library books when they were young. The books came free to the house. They are worth something, but I think that your price is a bit high considering. There are reflections in your photographs, but I understand you need to use the lighting & set up that you already have. In the future, play around with the position of the books and your camera to try to reduce that.
The general consensus on the forum is that Google search engine will truncate titles with any kind of punctuation. That means that when someone is searching for something specific, Google will match the first five or so words in your title and end at any punctuation. So, if you need to use punctuation, use it only at the end. Don’t worry about small words such as the, and, etc. No commas, no parentheses, etc.
Otherwise, you are doing a great job – you just need to keep up with it and not lose patience. Books are very interesting (at least to me), but they require time to sell. Watch the What Sold videos that come out Wednesday evening / Thursday morning and read the forum comments to get a better idea of what kind of inventory sells. Many of us have a variety of items so that our sales don’t get stuck when one kind of item falls out of favor.
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Wow Sharyn (and everyone else) … thank you for taking the time for such a detailed response! I have seen your posts on books that you have sold and have tried to use your examples for direction. big thanks!
I need to learn how to figure out shipping fees on all of my items. It seems that everyone has an exact amount in their listings. I need to figure that out so I can print out the labels correctly. More research needed on my part! I guess media mail is fairly easy to figure out the cost by weight.
also… I have been watching and reading in the What Sold sections… sort of binge watching them really! lol
I love books too and have an endless supply for free. I will figure prices and stop fussing with them. Also thanks for the info on the PJ Library… didn’t realize they came free… so will adjust the listing on that AND work on my lighting! 🙂
Many thanks! Liz
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Interesting selection of books, not just the usual mass market fiction you see when sellers are having trouble selling books on here. Considering the number you have listed, getting bids on any at auction is really good!
That being said, having 25 long-tail books listed is not going to lead to instant sales. Books like these have to wait for the right buyer – sometimes within an hour, other times 10+ years!
Books are incredibly long-tail, especially when you start digging in the ditches of older car ephemera and vintage childrens books. Like I posted in the podcast forum earlier, I only sold 1 book yesterday for $10. I have over 10,000 books and pieces of ephemera listed in my main ebay store. I feel like my bookstore is too insignicant to get accurate data on long-tail bookselling. You probably need at least 15,000-20,000 extreme long-tail books and pieces of ephemera listed on Ebay to get a good, steady flow of sales that you can really rely on.
Bookselling on ebay is incredibly hard work for an ok, but not great return. You really have to love bookselling and work really, really hard at it to make what would be considered even a poor income on Ebay.
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You do not have to calculate shipping costs. eBay will do that for you. For media mail and first class postage, the box size really doesn’t matter. The important part is the weight. You just have to factor in the weight of the box and any packaging and add it to the weight of the item. eBay does the rest.
For larger and heavier items, the size might be a factor in cost if the box gets beyond a certain size. I have standard size boxes, and I can now estimate the weight of the box and packaging plus the item, which I put into the listing. eBay again will calculate the shipping cost based on my inputs.
Don’t worry about fractions of the weight. If something is 1.5 pounds, use 2 pounds, etc.
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I have been slowly easing my toe into the water of book selling and have had some lucky scores. As I source books, I look for collections of books that were assembled by someone uniquely passionate about a pretty rare topic. My expectation is that someone will follow the same research strand and want these same books. Example: Today, I found a bunch of Air Force history and strategy books that likely came from an Academy faculty or graduate. Reasons I picked these up:
–Price – 8 books for $7
–Condition – 6 of the books were in excellent to new condition, 2 were acceptable, but had possible higher prices
–Rarity – these books were published by Air University Press and similar associated programs of the Air Force Academy so small batch (These were not text books that will have newer editions that would make them valueless)
–Comparable pricing – listing prices for these books (where there are any) listings were $30 to $90. Once I found 3 or 4 that had that this price range, I picked up all the books that I could find that looked like they came from the same collector.
–Synergy – these books might draw viewers to my other listings (I have lots of vintage photos of US Army Air Force servicemen from WW2)I also picked up a 1st edition of Harry Truman by Margaret Truman and a Page Smith – People’s History volume based solely on low source price and high comparable pricing. My expectation is that once listed, these books will be in my basement for the foreseeable future until someone rings my bell.
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Great advice from everyone! Thank you! Sadly, I gave our postal scale to our local charity thrift a couple of years back! lol… I will just have to use my husband’s bicycle scale until i replace it.
Almasty… thank you for putting things into perspective for me. Those numbers you mention are incredible! wow! I cannot believe you have over 10,000 books! where do you store them all?
Now I’m a librarian, but my first career I worked for the Tribune Co. in publishing and we would receive brand new and and advance copies of books and music for reviewing by the truckload. Again, I could have whatever I wanted. I sold on Amazon 10+ years ago and was able to sell new titles almost daily! That definitely skewed my expectations!
thanks to everyone for this great advice! If you were local I would totally buy you all a beer! liz
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Hi Liz! I am also Liz! And I also sell books on eBay! Here is a link to my store with sold listings, so you can see how I list my books: Stuff My Mom Threw Away
It is true that books are a long tail item, but I sell them all.the.time. (I just sold one now while writing this!)
For vintage and antique books, I do not lead with the title of the book but instead, lead with the date. A lot of people that buy books on eBay aren’t looking for a specific title. They are looking for something in a genre. Many of my book listings have the title near the end of the listing title because the book title is so obscure. People love to buy old books just because they are old, and they search on terms like “Antique books” or “Vintage Bible Stories for Children” or “Antique Poetry Books”.
Don’t waste listing title space with words like “Rare”.
That Zohar book on Judaism? Try a title like “Vintage 19XX Jewish Mysticism Kabbalah Zohar Book of Splendor “.
For your Vintage BIBLE TALES FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN by Lenore Cohen 1934, I would change that to “Vtg 1934 Bible Tales for Young Children Christian Stories”.
For Boston, Vol. 2, Upton Sinclair, (1928), Albert and Charles Boni, A Novel, I would change that title to “Antique 1928 Novel BOSTON Vol 2 by Upton Sinclair”.
Books are one of those things that a lot of sellers hate to sell. They are heavy. They take up a lot of room. Most do not sell for a lot of money. But you can often get them very cheaply, if not free, and they are easy to ship, (people give me boxes of free books ALL the time). Media Mail shipping is your friend.
Hope this helps -(the other Liz)
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LIZ! thank you so much for all of the tips! I will def. go through my listings and make the suggested changes. Wow…. anyway…it looks like i’m going to need to increase my selling space to a storefront on ebay! Plus clear out a space to store all of the books. Thanks again. Gotta run. Antiques Roadshow is on… hubby is waiting for me. liz (catmom)
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Another book lover here. I have had some luck selling some genres on Etsy even getting higher prices on some because there is less competition on Etsy. Sometimes there will be ten copies of a title on ebay and none on etsy. The types I’ve had luck with are craft / hobby how to books, decor / design and books on collecting.
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Thanks all for an interesting and informative discussion!
I have a ton of books that I’d love to sell but mostly have had very little luck – really since half.com disappeared. Most are my own”library.
Will try all of the suggestions above, wanted to get advice on one in particular!
So, bought this book about 10 years ago, paid a lot since it was difficult to locate.
The Bloody Patch – Colbaugh – 1973 -Standard Book No. 533-00851-4.
It is a First Edition with nice dust jacket.
It is a World War US Army unit history of the 28th Division. Yes, it’s great!So, since I paid a lot for it ( at least $50 ) and don’t expect I’ll read it again, thought it might be time to list it.
Her’s what a little research uncovered:
eBay shows NO recent sales and only one listing, for $124.50 for a SIGNED copy. By the way, this looks just like mine.
Amazon is where it starts to get wacky – 10 copies listed from a low of $198 to a whopping $487.50 with no discernible reason for the spread.
Checked alibis.com, seven copies from $135 to $433.73!
Yikes!!!!!
Using my old school eBay approach, I would have done an auction starting at an enticing price of say $50 and see what happens. If it is really rare / hard to find, maybe it would run, if not, ok to get $50 for it. The other approach would be $110 buy it now and wait. Hard to say. Because even if it is rare and grad to find, maybe no one wants it!
I would also think about listing it as militaria instead of “antiquarian books” to reach the right audience.
So, advice? Looking forward to hearing from you.
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Personally, I would list that on Amazon and price match to lowest price. It has a great rank of 2,000,000 on Amazon, and should probably sell within 6 months or so. Of course, the price might go up or down during that time, so you will have to keep an eye on it in case you need to reprice.
If you’re going to list it on Ebay, I would still price match it to Amazon, but add an OBO to it. I would then accept whatever offer you are comfortable with accepting for it.
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Re book prices on Amazon; a friend purchased a copy of “Build Your Own Solid State Oscilloscope” for £6 from World Of Books on Amazon. It was one of three copies listed by WoB for the same price; two in good condition and one in acceptable condition. He realises after ordering that he purchased the ‘acceptable’ copy by mistake, so he contacts WoB who tell him to return the book for a full refund, and then purchase another copy.
The book arrives, and he’s satisfied with it, so doesn’t bother. However the price of the two remaining copies was then increased to £125. I assume WoB’s software did that.
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Looonnngg tail….. I love books, can’t resist free boxes of them, love to spend hours in used book stores, and have dabbled in selling them over the years. In one of our moves we had 100 boxes of books. The military moves you for free, if you meet the weight limit. Otherwise it’s about a $1/pound if you go over. That was a painful check to write.
Great advice here to you Liz from all above. One more tip: If the book weighs in at less than a pound, ship by first class package, or if it’s an expensive book and it will fit, encase it in cardboard and use a priority flat rate padded envelope. I think the faster delivery will give those listings an edge.
You need a scale! You can always get stamps.com scales for sale, cheap, on ebay and they work great. Since you’re selling books you’ll want the one that measures up to 25 lbs.
Tiki: The most desirable unit histories are the ones with all the photos and unit rosters so that militaria collectors can research names and families can find grandpas and other relatives for genealogy research but even those are long tail unless they’re $20 and they’ll go a reseller. So your Colbaugh book I don’t think will get the big bucks. That said, it’s not a common book and the 28th had a great history. Worthpoint shows a single sale in 2013 for $75. I usually put my military books in Militaria but I think those interested search Books as well. If I had it I would put it up BIN for under $100 OBO and add key words to the description such as Omar Bradley, Edward Slovik, Pennsylvania National Guard, Siegfried Line, Operation Cobra, Hurtgen Forest, Ardennes Offensive, Colmar Pocket, etc.
I think an auction would be a waste. You’ll have to wait for the right buyer but they are out there. I think you’ll at least get your money back.
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