Selling Used Books

[crazymomof4]

I am looking at the math for a used book I just sold on amazon.

Total I rec'd from buyer was $8.38. Out of that comes: shipping $3.17 (media mail) and amazon fees totaling $4.05.

Hardly seems worth the effort. Yet there are sooo many people selling used books. How does anyone make a decent profit? What do they know that I don't?


[Edited to update media mail price]

 

[AgentMama]

Doesn't seem worth it at all, 48% seems like a ridiculous selling fee. Did Amazon make a mistake?

 

[starry_solo]

does half.com still exist? It was an eBay company specializing in selling used books. That's where I used to sell.

 

[Hikergirl]

Can you at least work shipping in to your price, or have the buyer pay shipping?
Some things seem like it is better to donate and write off than to deal with all that goes in to selling.

 

[la79al]

We sell some books on Amazon. The amount we get is not much. But, books are cheap to get at yard sales, Goodwill type stores, etc. We have them on a bookshelf in the basement and when one sells we drop it in an envelope and run it to the post office. We don't make much but it's pretty easy work.

 

[crazymomof4]

Can you at least work shipping in to your price, or have the buyer pay shipping?
Some things seem like it is better to donate and write off than to deal with all that goes in to selling.

Included in the $8.38 I got from the buyer, is the standard shipping charge.

 

[crazymomof4]

does half.com still exist? It was an eBay company specializing in selling used books. That's where I used to sell.

yes I used to sell on half.com a long time ago.... before it was bought by ebay. Back then I could make a decent enough profit. I've not been doing it for a while and I'm shocked at how the fees eat into your profit!!

 

[crazymomof4]

Doesn't seem worth it at all, 48% seems like a ridiculous selling fee. Did Amazon make a mistake?

No bc in my inventory I can see what the fees will be as soon as I list the books, and they are all about the same %. I think I'm going to look through my inventory and delete anything that will not give a worthwhile profit. I would just as soon donate to our library. They have book sales of the donations.

 

[Sagginit]

I typically donate books. I had boxes and amazon wouldn't accept most of them, which was odd because some were special academic type books from college that were still on the same printing but I think they could tell it was an older year print. If you have lots of similar type books you could try selling as a lot on Mercari. They only take 10% and you set the price. The only bummer is shipping is by weight there, but you still might make more. I have been shopping around on there for some more kids books. I can't bear to spend $15 on a board book my toddler will rip apart so I am just looking for a good lot or two to pick up.

I do buy used books on Amazon and most of those seem to be coming from used book stores, even got one from textbooks.com which I thought was odd for just a non-fiction bibliography type book.

 

[crazymomof4]

If you have lots of similar type books you could try selling as a lot on Mercari. They only take 10% and you set the price. .

Thanks. I will check that out.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Most of the book sellers actually making money on Amazon are selling a large volume of books. They may only make a few cents per book (ie the ones you see selling for 0.01 are making a couple of cents off what people pay for shipping) but multiplied by hundreds of books it adds up. I've never found Amazon to be worth it as a selling platform, too many fees if you aren't a large volume seller.

 

[crazymomof4]

Most of the book sellers actually making money on Amazon are selling a large volume of books. They may only make a few cents per book (ie the ones you see selling for 0.01 are making a couple of cents off what people pay for shipping) but multiplied by hundreds of books it adds up. I've never found Amazon to be worth it as a selling platform, too many fees if you aren't a large volume seller.

This is what I suspected. Are the larger volume sellers getting a discount on the fees? I remember seeing something about a "fee discount" in my snooping around amazon. Like if you pay an annual flat fee, you get a discount. Wouldn't make sense for me but it would for a seller handling 100s of books a year.
I've raised the prices of all of my inventory books on amazon so that I at least come away with a profit of $2.50. If I sell them, great. If not, so be it. I've already donated 9 trunk loads of books to our library (my Mom passed in Jan and she had soo many bookcases FULL). The one's I'm selling are only a handful of ones that are in pristine condition and sell for greater than a few cents.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

This is what I suspected. Are the larger volume sellers getting a discount on the fees? I remember seeing something about a "fee discount" in my snooping around amazon. Like if you pay an annual flat fee, you get a discount. Wouldn't make sense for me but it would for a seller handling 100s of books a year.
I've raised the prices of all of my inventory books on amazon so that I at least come away with a profit of $2.50. If I sell them, great. If not, so be it. I've already donated 9 trunk loads of books to our library (my Mom passed in Jan and she had soo many bookcases FULL). The one's I'm selling are only a handful of ones that are in pristine condition and sell for greater than a few cents.

There are different levels of seller, I don't remember the details, but I'm sure the more you sell the lower the fee percentage.