Posts Tagged ‘selling used books’

A Library That Operates Its Own Used Bookstore

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I had just put up a post that dealt with Library Sales when I ran across this article about a library in Waterloo, Iowa that just opened its own bookstore.

The article, written by John Molseed, is from the WCF Courier out of Waterloo/Cedar Falls Iowa. Apparently, in addition to holding regular sales, the Waterloo Friends of Library had sold donated books at a counter inside the library itself. However as donations outpaced what they could handle, they decided to open an entire bookstore which they call the Book Review (re-view, get it?).

It’s an interesting idea, one that allows the library to fundraise year-round instead of relying only on their annual sales. I’ve heard of other libraries who dabble in the year-round used books business before, but never on quite this scale. By all accounts it’s doing very well so far. If it is ultimately a success, this may be something we see more libraries getting involved in. If so, it’s not quite clear what the effect on us as online booksellers would be, but it sure is an intriguing concept.

What do you think? Are we going to be seeing more libraries opening used bookstores? What does that mean for library sales and for finding used books in general?

Tags: , ,
Posted in In The News | 1 Comment »

Sell Books Blog Guide to Customer Service (part 1 of 3)

Friday, June 12th, 2009

complaint-2Selling used books online is actually a kind of retail sales. Even though you’re not standing in a brick-and-mortar store, handing people receipts and wishing them a nice day, you’re still selling directly to individual customers, and that means interacting with those customers to some degree.

A lot of people learned all they know about customer service at their first job, believing deeply in the wisdom passed down to them from some 23 year-old assistant manager: The Customer is Always Right.

I’m not one of those people.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating treating your customers in any kind of disrespectful or unprofessional manner. On the contrary. However, to be a smart businessperson, especially in this business, you need to be aware that there are those people out there who will try and take advantage of you.

Most customers will be a breeze to work with. Things happen. People know that. Even if there is some problem or issue, if you make the effort to communicate with them, if you respond to their concerns in a timely manner, a lot of customers will be willing to forgive and forget (up to a point). Communication is the key. Be professional, be respectful and be reasonable and most of the time things will go smoothly.

Then there’s the rest of the time.

Some customers will be unreasonable. Before you even have a chance to work with them, they’ve decided to be upset and nothing you can do will change their mind. Don’t sink to their level. Be just as professional and respectful to them as you would to any other customer, but at the same time, don’t give them the shirt off your back just because they throw a hissy fit. Just accept that there are some people who will refuse to be satisfied, no matter how reasonable you are with them.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk.

Also, sometimes the customer is a scammer. More about that in part 2. Of course, you may be concerned that the jerks and scammers can damage your reputation. Don’t let them hold you hostage. In part 3 I’ll talk a little about customer feedback.

For now, let me just repeat that I’m not saying I think all customers are jerks. Again, most of them are very reasonable. I’m also not at all suggesting that you be rude or anything less than totally professional. I’m just saying that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Accept that fact, and don’t let a few bad apples take advantage of you.

Tags: ,
Posted in Customer service | No Comments »

Storing Your Books: Shelving

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

One unavoidable challenge of selling used books is figuring out just how exactly you’re going to store them all. When you’re first starting out, you’ll probably have them in your home. Be careful where you keep them. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to store your books in your garage, for instance, at least as a temporary measure. If you do, however, beware of moisture. The same goes if you rent a public storage space. Moisture is your enemy, it will damage your books and destroy your profitability. But regardless of whether you’re operating out of your home, a storage unit, or even if you step up to a small warehouse, you still need to decide how you’re going to store your books within that space. I’m talking, of course, about shelving.

Shelving is an interesting problem in and of itself. There are a number of ways you can go, some better than others.

cinder-blocksDorm Room Chic
You can always go the “cheap” route: makeshift shelving made out of cinder blocks and planks of wood. Admit it, you’ve at least considered going this route at some point in your bookselling career. I know I have. The problem, other than making your storage space look like a library built by frat boys, is that it’s actually not that cheap. Worse, it’s not that safe. Using a shelving system that actually poses a threat to your inventory is just bad business.

Mr. Handyman
Another seemingly cheap and effective option is to build your own bookcases from scratch. Again, I’ve tried it so you don’t have to. It’s time consuming and just not cost effective. I wouldn’t recommend going this route either.

Used and Abused
What could be wrong with getting cheap (or even free) used bookcases? Well, a lot actually. If you go on craigslist, you may find plenty of bookcases, but using an variety of different bookcases will bring you a variety of headaches. Bookcases with different heights, widths, number of shelves, etc. will cause you nothing but trouble in terms of organizing your inventory. Making it easy to locate your books is one of the primary functions your storage system needs to provide. Mismatched bookcases just don’t fit the bill.

Mass Production is Your Friend
An option I can recommend is pre-fab build-it-yourself jobs. Ikea’s Billy line in particular has worked well for me. They may be more expensive than other shelving you can scrounge up here and there, but they’re good for your books, and they’re good for organization, which means they’re good for your business.

Industrial Strength
If and when you get to the level of volume seller, you’re going to need something a little more heavy-duty. The majority of the books in my warehouse are stored on metal “gorilla” shelving, the kind you can get at Costco or through industrial supply companies. Truth be told, they aren’t actually as good for the books as my beloved Billy bookcases, but when you start dealing in high-volume business, you really need a high-volume solution.

Anyway, that’s the breakdown of the main options I’ve seen and/or used myself. Do you have a different take on any of the shelving options I’ve gone over here? How do you store your books?

Tags: ,
Posted in Storage | 2 Comments »

Can You Make Money Selling Books For A Penny?? (part 2 of 2)

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

In part 1 of this series I talked about the math of selling books for a penny and explained the narrow profit margins that selling penny books may (or may not) make possible. Given the seemingly miserable financial outlook of penny selling, lets take a look at some of the reasons people do it anyway.

First of all there are the books listed for a penny by small, individual sellers.

Some of these are people who just can’t stand to see a perfectly good book recycled into pulp. They knowingly lose money selling their books for a penny, in exchange for the peace of mind of knowing their books have found new homes. While I can appreciate the sentiment, to me selling books is my business, and such an elaborate method of paying to recycle my books just doesn’t make any business sense.

Another group of individual penny sellers are newbies. A lot of people go on Amazon, see a bunch of books listed for a penny and decide they need to list for a penny too. They either don’t know enough about how the process works, or they just don’t do the math, but whatever the reason, they usually learn fairly quickly that they’re actually losing money.

For the big bulk sellers on the other hand, there may be other reasons that penny selling makes sense (and not just cents).

Speaking for myself, I have used penny selling in the past. I don’t right now, but who knows, I might go back to it at some point.

I can’t say for sure what other sellers’ motivation for penny selling is. Some people argue that penny selling is a good way to generate positive feedback. Others are happy with the few cents of profit they make per book. For me, penny selling isn’t about either of those things.

Penny selling makes sense to me as a means to drive people to my own website. It also makes sense when it leads to multiple sales. For example, when someone buys a penny book as well as another book from me. Amazon sends me two shipping fees, and I can ship the two books together, leaving me a more reasonable profit.

Another reason that some larger sellers might use penny selling is as a means of inventory control. As a bookseller, you need to be able to identify and remove books that have no profit potential. If books aren’t going to sell, they’re not only failing to make you money, they are actually costing you money by taking up space in your warehouse, space you are paying for, space which could be used for profitable books. Going through your inventory, pulling and disposing of the books that need to go is sometimes referred to as “culling”. Some sellers may decide that rather than having their employees go through and cull their inventory, it makes more sense to list those books for a penny. The logic is that they might make a small profit, and even if they end up losing a little money on the deal, they would have had to pay anyway, in the form of their employees’ time spent culling their inventory. I don’t subscribe to this theory myself, finding it’s better for running an efficient operation to regularly cull my inventory.

So those are the main reasons people list books for a penny. Have you ever sold penny books? Do you have a reason for doing so other than the ones listed here? Please let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Strategies | 1 Comment »

Can You Make Money Selling Books For A Penny?? (part 1 of 2)

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

pennyOne of the most common questions new sellers have is “Why are there so many books listed on Amazon for a penny? How can people make money selling books for one cent???”

Well, they can and they can’t. The truth is that when a customer buys a “penny” book, they’re really paying the one cent plus $3.99 shipping. Amazon collects the $4, deducts their fees, and gives the remainder of the shipping fee to the seller to ship the book. Let’s look at an example, just to make things clearer.

Let’s say I list a book for a penny. Joe Blow in Nowheresville, Il purchases it and pays Amazon the $0.01+$3.99

From that $4.00 Amazon deducts $1.35 as a “closing cost” ($4.00-$1.35=$2.65)

I have an Amazon Pro Merchant account and am therefore exempt from Amazon’s usual additional $0.99 fee.

Amazon gives me $2.65

Assuming I can package and ship the book for less than $2.65, I have made a small profit. (Very small, actually. No more than a few cents.)

Expedited and international orders means larger shipping fees are collected, meaning a slightly higher profit margin. Larger sellers can also save even more if they use bulk rate shipping.

It should be noted that even if you are a Pro Merchant and don’t have to pay the .99 fee, it costs $40 a month for the Pro Merchant account. So even if you sell a couple dozen penny books, if your monthly profit doesn’t exceed $40, you’re still losing money on the deal.

Some people go so far as to use improvised packaging materials, shipping their books wrapped in butcher paper, or even cut-up paper grocery bags.

No matter how far people go to try and squeeze a few extra cents out of selling a penny book, the bottom line is that there’s just no profit in it for non-bulk sellers/shippers, and not much profit even if you do deal in bulk.

For this reason, it seems like traditional penny sellers, those who just try and eke out a few cents of profit per book, even they are moving away from literally selling books for a penny.

Still, there are plenty of books listed for a penny. In Part 2 I’ll discuss some of the different reasons books get listed for a penny, both by small, individual sellers and by larger bulk sellers.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Strategies | No Comments »

Sell Your Used Books Accross Multiple Marketplaces

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

If you are serious about selling used books, you don’t want to limit yourself by only listing on a single marketplace. On the other hand, creating individual listings on all the different marketplaces, Amazon, Ebay, Abebooks, etc., can be very time consuming. The best solution I have found is to use Inventory Management Tools which allow you to list across multiple marketplaces simultaneously. Here’s a breakdown of some of the major players in that space:

Fillz
Site: www.fillz.com
I currently use Fillz, and they seem to have become the leader of the pack when it comes to inventory management. Fillz can be a little difficult to get used to at first, and because of thie they actually may be changing their interface, but I really hope they don’t. Once you’ve gotten to know a little bit about how to navigate the service and understand how it works, it’s actually very logically set up and utilitarian. Fillz is a web-based tool, an example of what’s known as “cloud computing”. In other words, their service exists entirely online, as opposed to you having to actually download a program and install it on your machine. They support all the major marketplaces. Also, they’re now an Amazon company, which may bring with it certain advantages in the future.

Monsoon
Site: www.monsoonworks.com
I have used Monsoon in the the past, and didn’t have a great experience. I was signed up by a sales rep who didn’t fully disclose their fees. It was only after I decided to leave that they offered to change their fee structure because I was a volume seller. Unlike Fillz, you download install Monsoon, and it exists locally on your own computer, which some people prefer. More on that later.

Indaba
Site: www.goindaba.com
Indaba is essentially modeled after Monsoon. I contacted them back in 2006, but never got a reply. Back then they were going through some tech issues. Since then it looks like they’ve gotten themselves together fixed their issues.

The Art of Books
Site: www.theartofbooks.com
Just as Indaba is modeled after Monsoon, The Art of Books is modeled after Fillz. They also provide their service on the web, or in the “cloud”. I contacted them and they never got back to me. At the time they did not support the all marketplaces as I understand they do now. I’m not sure how well they can handle large volume, but I’ve heard positive reviews.

Basically, the choice seems to be between the Fillz, web-based model and the locally-installed Monsoon model. The cloud-based solutions cost less, whereas the locally installed solutions provide a greater sense of security. Web-based tools also leave you at the mercy of your connection speed. Those who take issue with the web-based model alsoe usually point to concerns about their data residing elsewhere. They worry about their data being hacked, misused, stolen or worse, lost. There is a certain amount of validity to those concerns, however any smart business owner will have their data backed up somehow, no matter what kind of tool they use.

In any case, judging by what I’ve seen, the marketplace has pretty much spoken and cloud computing seems to be the solution of choice. What do you think? Do you use an inventory management solution? Which one?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Tools | No Comments »