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I appreciate that. I’m finding out that old German books seem to be in as much demand as old US books. It’s about scarcity and condition. Even first editions aren’t necessarily valuable.
I’ve got some early Thomas Mann books. I’ve got four signed books by Oscar Maria Graf. The rest are fairly generic and I just run searches to find out which ones are going to be donated or listed. I’ve also got a couple of books signed by Zoosman. At least I believe they are signed. Those are intriguing.
Part of the same lot are books in English. The signed ones and first editions get my attention first. After that it’s a matter of filtering out the rest. Some I’ll donate and others sell in groups or lots.
Thanks..
It’s all about time.. how much time do you want to invest in those items.
When I research German Books.. in German, I go on my Chrome browser and then to Ebay.DE. I can click my mouse and I have the option of translating the entire Ebay page to English. It is very slow to research each item.
Where are your buyers ? In the USA or elsewhere. If they’re in they’re in the US, then just research on Ebay from the US.
By the time you are done, you will be somewhat of an expert on This CD’s and DVD’s,
Good Luck and a caveat to everyone else.. be careful what you wish for. I’m still working on my lot of antique books I bought months ago.
If someone asks me for a discount, I’m generally willing to give them something. If they low ball me, I don’t take it personally, I just respond with an offer I think is fair and let it go. I think it helps me in the search as well.
I don’t get into reasons or explanations, I just send the offer with a note “Thanks for your interest.”
I’m surprised at the number of people who end up buying from me this way.
I’ve done it before and it works really well.
I sold a $50 mug last week to a new buyer. He almost immediately asked me to ship to a different address, then sent me a message with his phone number and wanted me to text him, confirming I received the new address.
I thought about it and eventually asked him to cancel and repurchase with the updated address on Paypal. Sometimes this causes the sale to disappear. It turned out, this guy was just new and originally entered his address incorrectly. He repurchased the mug and seemed happy.
I’m willing to risk losing a sale for piece of mind.
Unfortunately, I needed cash to make this purchase, so the credit card was not a good option.
09/14/2017 at 12:42 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Christian Dior sunglasses, Bose speakers, Lucchese boots, Artists pochade box, GE Wildcat record player #22829Everything you are saying about 8 tracks and records, I see going on with books right now. They are heading to the landfills by the ton. Go get your warehouse and buy all the pre 1970 books you can find. Believe me there are lots and lots of them.
In 15 or 20 years, I think the world is going to ask “What happened to all the books?”. We will find that Wikipedia is not the answer to all the questions, and media stored on the internet is far from permanent or free.
I personally donate books by the hundreds, many of which are over 50 years sold. Unfortunately there is no resale value right now for most.
Update.. I borrowed $1000 on 7/31. It was available immediately and in my bank account the next day. I chose the highest payback rate at 30%.
Paypal predicted a time to payoff of 2 months or less. As of today it is paid off (about 45 days). The total fee (interest) charged upfront was $23.
For me it was more like a cash advance than a loan.
For my particular situation, it was clearly the best option to fund my venture. Due to the timing of the purchase, I didn’t have the luxury of time to obtain the money through more traditional means.
Ideally self funding is the way to go. There’s nothing like borrowing from the bank of ME. However, for a short cash flow situation, Paypal Working Capitol is worth looking into.
Thanks
09/09/2017 at 11:49 pm in reply to: Invoicing Shipping for Multiple items huge price discrepancy? #22670It’s difficult to answer this question without more details.
As a rule the combined shipping calculator is far from perfect. If I am going to combine shipping, I do it manually, for both the invoice and the actual postage.
When you go to print the label, you can change any of the parameters you want, such as size, weight and the shipping service.
It’s pretty obvious the shipping discount brought the price down from $10.05 to $7.65. It sounds like maybe the buyer doesn’t live too faraway.
I hope this helps..
Under shipping policies, you can put in combined shipping charges, for each additional item purchased.
I generally don’t do this, because the 2nd one ships for a different price than the 4th one etc. If a customer purchases multiple quantities, I will combine shipping manually, when it makes sense.
If the customer contacts me ahead of time, I will advise him not to pay, until he receives my invoice. Then I calculate the combined shipping charges and send it to him.
If he just pays, without contacting me, I will occasionally refund excess shipping charges. Ebay, adds up the different shipping fees for each item and gives me the total. If it’s a dollar or two, I don’t issue a refund. If it’s excessive, I will often issue a “combined shipping discount” directly through Paypal, on my own initiative. I am not required to do this, but I feel it’s good customer service. It really doesn’t happen that often.
I hope this helps.
What an interesting video.
I also use tons of newspaper for packing material. Most of my items are placed in the clear plastic bags or clear stretch wrap in addition to bubble wrap. Packing materials consist of whatever is on hand, from Newspaper to Styrofoam and old grocery bags.
The “Do Not bend Stickers” are a great idea.
The Scotty Stuffers are a good idea, but seem a little expensive. I buy the (7 X 5 X 4) inch boxes from EcoSwift. They are a tad smaller, but it enables me to stuff the gap with newspaper and create a cocoon in the Flat Rate Padded Envelope. I haven’t had anything break yet using these and I can also use the boxes by themselves to ship 1st class.
I’ve used the polymailers to wrap up boxes before, but it seems a little risky shipping Media Mail inside a Priority Box. If your package gets inspected, you (or your customer) may be charged the Priority rate.
All and all you’ve got some very sound ideas.
I looked up the address on Google maps, and the addresses are about 5 houses apart, so I’m hoping it’s no big deal.
I’ll wait to hear from the buyer and maybe give her a partial refund if she can get it at the old address. The $20 fee isn’t the end of the world, but I don’t want to pay it, unless I have to. If it were a car ride away, I would probably just pay up and move on.
I try to keep brown shipping/packing tape on hand for just this reason. Between that and black magic markers, it’s pretty easy to cover any labels or marks, especially bar codes.
It’s the first I’ve heard of Amazon making reused boxes an issue. So much for protecting the environment and being green.
Wow that’s a small house. What part of the country are you in and is it on a decent sized lot?
My house is just under 1000 square feet.. which is pretty small, but I’ve got lots of storage on a decent sized lot.. so no big deal.
The basement sounds great… A former owner actually put a bomb shelter in my front yard, many years ago. It’s a little creepy at first, but once you get down there it’s cool and dry etc. It’s perfect for storage. I put lights and shelving down there.
Congrats on the purchase.. Have fun making it your own.
Yes, I received it too. If anyone knows how to find the affected listings, I’d appreciate it. I didn’t see any links to help me do that..
Thanks
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