Category Archives: Reselling

Posted on

Buy from X, Sell on Amazon

by

I’ve found that although Amazon is the juggernaut that rakes in tons of cash, there are opportunities to ride the wave by purchasing a product elsewhere and reselling it on Amazon. Although textbooks were lucrative for me Тбилиси достопримечательности in the Summer as it approached the Fall semester of college, I’ve had to branch out. I find that I’ve been successful if I buy a used product and then resell it (as used) on Amazon. The reason: people use Amazon as their go-to, so sometimes the only price-checking they do is from the various vendors that sell on Amazon. I’ve found Craigslist and eBay to be my places to buy and then I sell on Amazon.

Buy Lots

If you have a good eye, you can get a good return on investment by buying lots. For example, I purchased a lot of 3 bluetooth keyboards that were open box returns and not tested to know if they were defective. Once I received them I determined that they were, indeed, defective. But a quick check let me know that I could return them to the manufacturer under warrantee and receive new replacements. Wow – take a $30 purchase and I can sell just one replacement keyboard for a 200% profit! Of course not everything works that way. I am not particularly handy, so I prefer to purchase a lot of used merchandise rather than defective devices.

Posted on

It’s the Little Things That Count

by

coins

I’m always trying to find ways to beat the big boys who sell on Amazon. By “big boys” I mean companies that sell in large volume, or drop ship with merchandise they do not physically have. They are able to make most of their profits from the shipping profit margins. But not the little guy.

In contrast, the profit I get is by dealing in products that are in demand, so I need to determine what products can get a nice up-sell profit. That still often means making sure to price the product competitively, meaning that it makes most sense to either match or beat the lowest price for a product so your appears on the first page of results.

Another option is to differentiate your products to make them more appealing. For every product I sell, I try to differentiate myself from competitors in three ways:

    1. Write Good Copy

    – Sell your product by being very specific about the condition of the specific merchandise being sold. Include content that differentiates yours. Sometimes this means you may choose to charge more with the thought that buyers may choose your product due to building trust.

    2. Use Images

    – I scan or grab a pic of every product I have. For books, it often means I try to include a cover image and an image of an inside page that includes the ISBN. Again, the purpose is to build trust, to let the consumer know that what they are buying is accurate. I’ve noticed that the “big” sellers contain no photos and the same standard copy for the condition of the merchandise.

    3. Rounding the Overall Cost

    – I do not know if this really works or not, but with Amazon, the consumer sees both the product cost and the shipping costs (if any). I make sure to charge an amount that, when combined with Amazon-calculated shipping costs, rounds to the nearest quarter. That is, final total price for the buyer ends with .00 .25 .50 or .75. Maybe it’s my own desire for rounding, but it may be a reason for someone to choose my merchandise.

Posted on

August is the Time to Sell Textbooks

by

Back to SchoolAugust is the month when students are gearing up for school. For some, they want to unload their old textbooks so they can have some money to buy the new. For a book reseller, it’s a win-win. Sellers want to unload and buyers are willing to pay more for used because it’s still much cheaper than buying new.

Use Craigslist

I tend to look at Craigslist to find out if there are any deals. There are some students (or their parents) who just want to get rid of the texts. Once I understand the specifics of the book (ask them for ISBN number and whether or not it i a custom edition), then I can check to see what it is selling for used on Amazon or through a book reseller – I check on BookScouter or CampusBooks. I need to turn a profit, so I look for books that are only a few years old and see what the seller is offering. Since I have nothing to lose, then I may offer a lot less to see how much we can negotiate. Remember, when all is said and done, I want to earn at least $5 when all the dust has settled (postage, seller fees, etc.), but for textbooks I tend to raise my own expected profit margin. Sometimes when negotiating, I’ll start low and then offer a few more bucks for them to ship. Yes, there is the risk that they may collect my money and never ship, but so far I have not been burned.

It’s Still a Deal

In the law of supply and demand, I do not consider low-balling particularly sleazy. I just want to find out how quickly a seller wants to sell their textbook. I’ve seen it the other way too, where a college student expects to charge a bunch, which is far more than someone could get used on Amazon. Once I buy a textbook, I usually attempt to sell on Amazon. If I use a book reseller, of course they offer much less, but it’s a guaranteed sell. I’ll often factor the age of the text before I make a decision. If I use Amazon, I can still charge the least amount so I beat the big boys and still make a nice profit. Of the nine textbooks I’ve sold in a month, my average net profit is $33, which is much more than other books or merchandise I try to resell.

Posted on

Step 2: Cost Benefit Analysis of Reselling Books

by

As someone who has a day job in the software industry, a successful project is governed by a cost-benefit analysis. That is, how can we be successful when we consider time, cost, and resources? For book reselling, this means that:

  • I need to determine how much time I will spend looking for books to buy
  • I need to determine what I need to spend on packing materials, postage, and any branding/marketing/web to get up and running
  • I need to know my goals for net profit and make sure I am tracking this

At the end of the day, I do not want this to be a hobby. Rather, I want it to be a money-making business that will give me more time with my family. The concept of a passive income appeals to me, although this would not be considered passive. This business focuses on a 1:1 product relationship. In the future I will look to a 1:many relationship by creating my own products.

So in sum, track the time and money you spend to get up and running. As an example, as an entrepreneur, I started with my own existing book collection (at no cost) and then my own capital for buying used books to resell. One of my merchants, Amazon, holds onto the purchase income until it establishes your bona fides. Meaning, you may not see that income for the first month or two. I am doing lo-fi way of tracking by creating a spreadsheet. It’s simple.

Essentially I track money I’ve spent (on books, postage or supplies, etc.) and then indicate what an item sold for (minus seller fees and postage). This way I can start to see a pattern of the types of books that I am successful with and what I am willing to spend for a book. It takes some trial and error. Generally, I want to be able to make at least $5 net from a sale but I have targeted textbooks during the Summer with the expectation that it will be a hot market through August.

I’m not in the black yet, but soon hope to be.

Income and Expenses

Posted on

Step 1 for the Book Reseller: Find Books and Buyers

by

Bookshelf

One of the challenges is getting a business off the ground without wanting to invest much initial capital. I had already established a checking account via Simple (Bancorp). I felt it would be easy to track all of my overhead expenses and revenue if everything pointed to one account. Since I am starting out small, I haven’t yet established anything “business” related.

So first I thought that I would take an inventory and see what could be sold that I already owned. In a few weeks, my family plans to host a yard sale, so I wanted to collect all of the books that we no longer wanted. I quickly determined that books would fall into one of four categories:

Re-sell via Amazon

Amazon is an interesting beast. There are two models for selling with them.

If you plan to start small (individual plan), you pay Amazon a .99 cent fee per item sold plus other costs that Amazon charges (varies by category). Essentially, they are taking a portion of the proceeds, so you need to make sure you are selling items that make a fair amount of money. There are professional sellers who are charging almost nothing for a book plus Amazon’s default $3.99 shipping fee. They make money by earning a few pennies from the difference between their shipping costs and what Amazon bakes in.

A second option is the professional selling plan that charges a $39.99 monthly subscription fee plus per-item selling fees. This is great for the larger companies that plan to sell in large volume monthly. For the little guy just starting out, I selected the individual plan.

Re-sell via eBay

eBay doesn’t appear to charge fees as high as Amazon. I’ve found that it can be a viable option for selling, but since Amazon is known for books, I’ve found more success selling books on Amazon, despite the higher fees. Sometimes it’s worth a little less profit if the item has a better chance of selling, and more people think to search Amazon when looking for books. I’ve found eBay can be more niche, like selling collector’s edition books or book lots.

Re-sell via Textbook Buyers

Sometimes the books, especially if they are recent or classic edition school textbooks, have a chance of being bought by a company that sells used textbooks. The challenge is that they offer a lot less than you might be able to get selling on your own through Amazon, but it should be guaranteed money. Just make sure that you know the specific textbook you plan to sell. Most of these companies will not buy “International” or “Global” editions of textbooks that are printed overseas and offered at a discount. With that said, I’ve found the occasion when I am able to get a textbook and still make a profit using one of these resellers:

  • BookScouter.com
  • CampusBooks.com

Leave comments if you are familiar with others. The benefit to these services is that although they may offer less cash.

Yard Sale or Donate

Most of the books I’ve collected from my home fall into this category. They are either old textbooks that are not worth anything (because newer editions exist) or they are best-selling books with so many copies that the big boys selling on Amazon can charge little and make profit from the shipping margins. So in a few weeks I’ll attempt to sell 3 large boxes of books. My plan is to advertise by genre to generate interest (children’s, popular fiction, psychology, etc.). I’m also considering selling by weight – that is, pay per pound of books That way I can get something for a large quantity of books sold. Otherwise, the books will be donated and used as a tax write-off.

What ideas have worked for you?

Posted on

Two Ideas for Earning Extra Income

by

This is my inaugural post. In July I decided that I wanted to find another revenue stream to help the family pay off debt the Dave Ramsey way. I wanted to find a passive revenue stream so that I could still spend quality time with my family and provide a service for people. I came up with two ideas:

  1. Resell used products – I read the Penny Hoarder’s post on how to  make $750 a month selling used books and thought that might be one way to make money while staying at home. So far I’ve been selling for a month. I haven’t made $750 through one month, but hopefully that will change once I get a few months under my belt. I’ll write another post documenting my overhead (get started) expenses and what I’ve earned in profit.
  2. Internet Marketing via Niche Sites – I decided to create a few websites that would cater to niche markets. I purchased a WordPress template and plugin from JVZoo.com, which made it much easier to use affiliate links to products that I found interesting. I created the following niche sites for: golf, hobbies, gadgets, and comics. I am interested in some of these niche markets but I felt that there could be an opportunity to carve out an opportunity to provide merchandise to consumers who were interested.

The purpose of this blog is to document my successes and failures during this experiment. Of course I’ve read that you can earn tons of money following someone’s recipe for success. I am skeptical at best, so I will be brutally honest in what works for me.