Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I have not seen any curtailment either beyond a few textbooks here and there that are very new that are gated.
As a backup, you can see who is able to list those and try to form a consignment relationship. I don’t know if you could maybe back door in somehow with Abebooks. Several years ago, that was a possibility
I wish.i have the opposite problem. Often I find a great find, then forget I have it! Months later: oh look, great find!
Hi everybody!
It’s been a bit of a nightmare here. In the Days of Our Lives department, I have been stealth looking at another place to live. Long story, but my partner and I might be really on the rocks this time.
I like to think I’m an 80s Virginia Slims advertisement with a sprinkle of slightly less slutty Cosmopolitan, but I’m like a deer in head lights. My sister, who won the cast iron skillet throwing competition for three years straight at the county fair has more worldly experience in this department than me.
I swear I will have a stroke if I can’t take my cat bffs.
Oh sure, I have travelled a lot, but rarely without my twin like co dependent partner. Yes, I have taken all those goofy couples quizzes (my answers change for the same quiz too many times to count): made the therapist’s cute outfit waterlogged with tears: and stood staring into space thinking “What the heck am I thinking!!”
So now I am back in cold feet land. The decision is not as simple as it ought to be. I think of my aunt who got divorced twice when both her husbands cheated on her, forgot to renew her health insurance policy, found out she had lung cancer, and lost it all, including her life.
Will I have that kind of bad luck if I strike out alone into the big world? It’s been 20 years since I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Maybe a comfortable routine and dimming love with a good person is better than freedom.
In the meantime, I did manage to put together a video. A lot of this is about intentionally buying damaged items and selling them. Although things like mold are iffy, you can conserve them, but they must be quarantined as mold can and will spread. There are ways to remove most of it. I rarely do that, but I once sold an 1800s book about the Great Lakes which was heavily water damaged in under a half hour for $395.00. I went to a forum to ask about pricing, checked back and Boom it was Sold. Same thing with a true First of Carrie. It was destroyed, spine broken, some pages included but free from the binding. Library issue so it had markings. Somebody wrote profanity inside the cover etc. I eventually put it up for $75 and it was gone in 4 minutes to a buyer in the U.K. In my defense, this was my green horn era.
However I am still living and learning, and hopefully evolving.
Good sales! Be sure to check out the clickies type of vintage computer keyboards. They sell pretty well.
Hi everybody,
Ive been busy with Amazon stuff. 🤢 eBay is going along fairly well, and as expected for this time of year.
Anyway, some interesting stuff in my What Sold, including a 19th century mourning scarf wrap made entirely of human hair.
J & R
I have a program that crawls the web and gives me a long list of books that fit our formula. The formula changes depending on a gut feeling I have it’s not exactly a precise science, but I touch on it at that other link.
My preference is technical books, nonfiction and textbooks.
I work Amazon a total of about 3 1/2 hours a day. If you read about some of our crazy gravy days I mentioned in passing, it can be extremely lucrative. With more competition, it’s tougher, but still good. It’s the internal strife that’s caused our problems. Tornado vs. volcano.
I don’t post those numbers here but I can shoot you an email if you like.
In general, we rotate several hundred in inventory at any given time.
It’s excruciating after over a decade, but it’s ok.
Hi ya all.
Amazon hands down, will make you more money faster than eBay, with more stability over time, IF you know how to do Amazon.
Is it sexy? Nope. Is it soulless? Yup. (Probably)We only sell books on Amazon. The books we focus on must fall within a certain rank, and fall within a certain net, or we don’t even consider flipping it.
I only buy and resell books online. I have ever never bought in bulk or by pallet. There is no need if you follow a formula and keep everything lean. (We do not want to be another Better World Books), nor do I run around Walmart or Ross scanning for Amazon.
For a very brief outline of how, after about 13 years running, I think a small Amazon bookseller in business ought to be thinking, see my response to retrodottie here
We're adapting to Amazon increases in book fees by turning to Ebay!
IMO, if u want to do Amazon for a living, long term, pick a 1-2 areas and stick with them until you know them inside and out, have your inventory system completely 100% organized, and be able to ship No later than the next business day. These are the minimum requirements to succeed on Amazon, long term.
The other is having your own, or paying for use of a good, reliable price changer. If you can’t do that. ☠️ You will not make it.
Is it as exciting as eBay? Doubtful. However it’s a good diversification strategy, and I am still able to overcome serious burn out with it to continue on.
Finally, I am very critical of those channels that encourage doing retail arbitrage on Amazon with consumer credit, or claim how great they are With their “hustle”. I have seen newbies go down in flames to financial ruin, buying to resell whatever the latest YouTube reseller trend is, as told to them by some dude who disappears in a few years or less.
Regardless of Amazon or eBay niche, reselling is a Thinker’s occupation.
Personally, that WSJ is exactly on point. Amazon is more like day trading. We keep it simple, (books, CDs) which have a lower return rate, within a certain margin, and ranking. It has served us well.
Mary:
My partner and I have been selling on Amazon for over a decade, so since u didn’t ask, I thought I’d give you some unsolicited advice. 😃
First, have you made the migration to Amazon’s new shipping platform where sellers now get to offer free shipping, etc?
Anytime Amazon tinkers it’s a cluster for a few months.
To have such a dramatic shift in sales volume it’s either a Amazon problem or a price changer issue. Perhaps your inventory was dumped off the site without u seeing it, and thus not available to buy at all.
Here’s one way this happens:
Do you have your own price changer or do you outsource that, or use Amazon?
If you use Amazon’s freebie price match/ changer, you do so at your own peril. We tried it and discovered that it would toss hundreds of listings into inactive with no explanation.
Very long story short, I ended up on the phone with the kind development department for that price changer and we went thru my audit of our books for an hour. Turns out even if the price doesn’t go below or over your rule, if the Amazon price dramatically fluctuates, their system will close seller’s copies into inactive at random on the theory this stabilizes price fluctuations.
For those that tried Amazon’s price changer, the best and safest way to completely exit its tentacles is to DELETE that sku, and completely realist it. If not, even if you end it, then relist from the same Sku, or think you have stopped using their changer, you really haven’t. Your rule still applies and it can randomly create havoc.
(We should have stayed with our home brew in the first place as it works fine, but hey open minds..never again Amazon)
Second, you need to analyze what changed, if anything in the quality of what ur reselling. What are you doing differently. Was this is a long downward trend or sudden downturn.
It’s quite possible it’s a rankings issue. If u stock is dropping off into crappy ranks, they sell slower or not at all.
To be blunt, it could simply be the quality of your Stock over time. If your stock has snail velocity, of course it’s going to cost a lot to store, and when FBA fees went up ouch.
Third if u r cross posting on both sites, be very careful. That can quickly cause a mess. Our models are completely different. I only post antique or collectible books on eBay and post the rest on Amazon. We found that the type of books we sell (non fiction technical specialized books and textbooks) move slower on eBay , relative to Amazon, so it wasn’t worth the effort.
I hope by bundling, u get good results.
Finally, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but consider exiting the Volume model for a rankings/quality model.
There aren’t any books in our Amazon stock that have over a 1.2 million rank and would sell for less than $12.00 net. Ideally we aim to make an average of $18 and up with a rank between 0 to 750,000.
My opinion, is if Amazon book rankings aren’t on the radar / buy to resell considerations (with exceptions, such as truly scarce books), one’s bookselling life will not be sustainable even if one merchant fulfills.
Believe it or not, you can make a good living with a minimum rotating stock if the quality and velocity are there. (This, of course, can be said about any resale item).
Bottom line from over a decade of doing this:
you need to totally audit your present listed stock, bring out your Dead as a tax write off or donate for charitable deduction.
(Your price changer will greatly thank you, work faster and increase sales, for starters. Not to mention the storage costs etc)
You need to make sure the stock you Think is listed, is indeed really listed on Amazon. It happens. It also can make a price changer inefficient, or plain not work properly.
Third you need to look around that facility and seriously think if this is the route you want to go. Personally, volume sales are not for me, and companies like Better World Books and Thrift Books among many, often pound smaller volume sellers to dust, simply by being.
In any event your March comparisons suggest a serious inventory issue that needs to be directly audited. It’s a grueling haul, but fix that and u won’t need eBay unless u want to ditch books.
Best of Luck.
Omfug
Sweet sales. Hat actually does look beaver to me, although many were Seal. It’s a very nice top hat in great shape.
