Amateur bookselling...
Sep. 20th, 2013 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpA book I ordered from an Amazon bookseller arrived today and, as expected, it had been sent at the media mail rate ($2.53, based on weight and size, not distance). The cost of the book was $0.01 plus $3.99 for shipping and handling, which means the seller made $1.47 on the deal, less the cost of packaging , labeling, and a trip to the post office. I estimate the seller is getting a bit over a dollar for the book. In terms of conventional brick-and-mortar markup, that means the seller would've had to acquire the book for not more than 50 cents or so, but that figure does not factor in a heap of assumptions.
I recall, back when we had the mail store in Pagosa, there was a constant turnover in folks trying to make a living in this manner. The common denominator among them was that they had not really figured out what was involved in the business. My guess is that online bookselling only works if you have a good niche market with steady demand (in which you don't necessarily sell many books, but where the price of a book will be far greater than $0.01) or you put a heck of a lot of "penny" books up for sale for which there is equally a steady demand and rely on the law of averages. For example, if you figure that 1% of your stock will sell every day, and you have 10,000 books listed, you can expect to sell about 100 x 30 books per month. At 50 cents profit per book, that's adds up to $18,000 annually, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is not a figure that exactly makes a strong case for achieving financial independence, either. And while we're on the subject, selling an average of 100 books per day also means acquiring and putting up that same number per day, or watch revenues gradually dwindle.
By the way, it occurs to me that folks who tell you that you don't need math or algebra are—whether they realize it or not—basically delivering you, bound hand and foot, to those who do use math and algebra in business. For example, I recently ran across a party who was under the impression that having a "mortgage with a 5% interest rate" meant that 5% of the monthly payment was interest (and the rest applied to principal) when almost quite the opposite was true: very nearly all of the monthly payment went to service accrued interest, and only a small amount of principal was retired each month.
The point is not that the bank is cheating anyone, per se; heck, everything is spelled out in black and white and even printed out in the form of an amortization table. But if you lack the skills to interpret that information... watch out! As I said, anyone who says you don't need math or algebra is encouraging you to remain helpless, to your long-term disadvantage.
I recall, back when we had the mail store in Pagosa, there was a constant turnover in folks trying to make a living in this manner. The common denominator among them was that they had not really figured out what was involved in the business. My guess is that online bookselling only works if you have a good niche market with steady demand (in which you don't necessarily sell many books, but where the price of a book will be far greater than $0.01) or you put a heck of a lot of "penny" books up for sale for which there is equally a steady demand and rely on the law of averages. For example, if you figure that 1% of your stock will sell every day, and you have 10,000 books listed, you can expect to sell about 100 x 30 books per month. At 50 cents profit per book, that's adds up to $18,000 annually, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is not a figure that exactly makes a strong case for achieving financial independence, either. And while we're on the subject, selling an average of 100 books per day also means acquiring and putting up that same number per day, or watch revenues gradually dwindle.
By the way, it occurs to me that folks who tell you that you don't need math or algebra are—whether they realize it or not—basically delivering you, bound hand and foot, to those who do use math and algebra in business. For example, I recently ran across a party who was under the impression that having a "mortgage with a 5% interest rate" meant that 5% of the monthly payment was interest (and the rest applied to principal) when almost quite the opposite was true: very nearly all of the monthly payment went to service accrued interest, and only a small amount of principal was retired each month.
The point is not that the bank is cheating anyone, per se; heck, everything is spelled out in black and white and even printed out in the form of an amortization table. But if you lack the skills to interpret that information... watch out! As I said, anyone who says you don't need math or algebra is encouraging you to remain helpless, to your long-term disadvantage.
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no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 11:58 pm (UTC)I'm starting to offer up several of the kids' toys on Amazon, and the benefit is that if it's shippable (e.g., LEGO sets but not Imaginext sets), you can reach a much broader audience than craigslist AND the customer has already identified the thing they want to buy. No browsing through the vague murk of "Babies'/Kids' Stuff for sale."
no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 04:05 pm (UTC)While I have not checked it out "with the horse's mouth" (Amazon), I did run across some fairly scary stuff (e.g., here (http://askville.amazon.com/people-make-money-selling-books-Amazon-01/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=55936986), though most of the comments are several years old) that gives me pause about trying to sell books on Amazon (unless it's for a solid price).
Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 05:29 pm (UTC)But if you have a decent price for it, and a bulk supply of bubble envelopes that your books can fit in, it's worth it to try to sell a few as opposed to just donating them or keeping them around. You might get requests very slowly, but I have my 'for sale' stuff all cleaned up and set aside for whenever someone might buy it.
Getting those LEGOs under control... gah. Some, I just want to keep for grandkids (the Atlantis and Alien Invasion sets, which are original and weird, and the Harry Potter stuff). But all of my son's Star Wars sets? There were about 30 of these, and you have to rebuild them all to figure out what belongs to each set (and what's missing altogether). I'm down to verifying/dismantling 3 more largish sets, and resurrecting 2 largish ones from bins o'random. Still haven't touched the Kingdoms/Castle series, but the bulk of the work is finally done...
My daughter's Care Bears were so much easier!