eBay

shireshann · ‎05-01-2023

I sell used books and I have thought I've created the perfect listings and sometimes It's worked and I've had already created perfect photos but I get the books as is and I have had 20 books only to sell five or 10 I throw out the damaged books what is the perfect listing for used books and I sell other stuff besides books?

chevymontecarlo88 · ‎05-01-2023

Books has been a tough category for common books these days. Your shipping charges seem to be a little high which is most likely you are getting no sales on them. With Media Mail (USPS) you should be able to provide a reasonabe shipping price.

I noticed you have a few pictures of the actual book which is great but some are out of focus and there is some glare on a few. I would work on getting a little better pictures (since you are already taking them).

Also i am assuming you comp recent sales for what you are selling. If not you may want to and also look at what is selling and what keywords they are using.

turnpiketreasures1 · ‎05-01-2023

eBay is like any online selling site, you are competing with so many other shops, especially on eBay. There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of other book listings. So not only do you have to have a perfect listing, you have to have tons of listings in order to get noticed. Just keep listing and see if the sales are better. Good luck.

1786davycrockett · ‎05-01-2023

@shireshann

Many of your listings seem to be romance novels. That's one of the toughest categories for ANY bookseller, and your prices should be considerably lower, if you plan to compete with the book wholesalers on eBay, who charge less than $5.00 per book, with free shipping.

And, on hardcover listings, buyers need to see photos of the flyleaves, as well, especially to see whether the books may be book club offerings.

In addition, many buyers need to see the copyright page on ANY book, to help to determine the edition and publication history.

Your photos need to be closer to the product itself, and with much less glare.

You need to diversify subject matter, as well -- you seem to have a lot of cookbooks, along with all those romance novels; but a more diverse variety of books will draw in more buyers.

Books are a tough sell: I've been in the book business for nearly 60 years, and every year it seems to become more difficult, especially with fewer young people actually reading PHYSICAL books, rather than reading their iPads, or listening to audiobooks.

So find your niche -- and good luck.

shireshann · ‎05-02-2023

Thank you

shireshann · ‎05-02-2023

I know I'll need to make perfect listings I use ebay app to scan my books and it usually works.

shireshann · ‎05-02-2023

I use ebay app and the reason my prices are so high is because it has a lot to do with my shipping and supplies costs and everytime I had to lower my prices was because it either recommended or it was an offer I had to accept if I have to work on the photos and listings again .

dreambooks · ‎05-06-2023

You might have a perfect listing but no one would look at it; you might have a lousy listing but people might buy it. I do not worry about whether my listing is perfect or not, I worry whether it will sell or not, and mostly whether it's worthy of my time spending on it. That is why I hate all those ebay item specifics because they are a waste of time. I put everything the buyer should know in the title.

Online price and sales is a purely demand-and-supply system. A book can be good and popular, but it is a bomb for online sellers. Take Danielle Steele, she outsell any contemporary authors, and I am sure every thrift store and used bookstore has piles of her books. I have more than 100 of her books but I would not list them, even in a bulk lot. The only book of hers that's worth listing is her newest book.

The bane of online booksellers is the common books of Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, John Grisham, etc, and The Reader's Digest Condensed books. It has been this way since I got started 20 years ago. You are better off selling books that you have never heard of, like Security Analysis, or History of XXX County.

But I have seen people selling books at much higher price than me and they thrive, while I list at half of their price, yet I still struggle at making sales. Maybe perfect listing matters, who knows. You will see sellers like Thriftbooks and Worldbooks that they do not have pictures in their listing, but they sell millions of books. I can imagine that they have more of those popular authors than they want to sell.

taylor_memorial · ‎05-13-2023

Some books sell in a day. Some in a week. Some in a month. Some in a quarter. Some in a year. Some in 6 years.

You sell books that have sold, at least once. They don't go bad, at least not quickly.
Set it and forget it is my policy. I have about 2900 books listed, and will list more tomorrow . It's not about the quick turn, so much as it is about keeping things moving.

Good pictures, key words, good selection that's what makes you money. What doesn't sell this month may well sell like hotcakes in a couple months: bookselling is seasonal. You don't take a heavy history book to the beach, and you don't read a light cozy mystery when you want something to sink your teeth into.

2013grotz · ‎05-13-2023

@1786davycrockett wrote:
if you plan to compete with the book wholesalers on eBay, who charge less than $5.00 per book, with free shipping.

Your photos need to be closer to the product itself, and with much less glare.

You need to diversify subject matter, as well -- you seem to have a lot of cookbooks, along with all those romance novels; but a more diverse variety of books will draw in more buyers.

This is all pretty much what I would say. There's been topics about it all over here, but you really are trying to work against a huge glut of used books already out there (and other media such as CDs, DVDs, etc) because a lot won't hold onto books after they've read them (or at all). Hence you're going to have some pretty low prices to compete against just because the supply is so high. Like with the Danielle Steel, I trip over those about every time I go out thrift shopping and probably could have 100's in short order if I was patient enough.

Same goes for cookbooks: I really don't know anyone who actually *keeps* cookbooks anymore, especially since there's whole recipe sites you can just web search and get whatever it is you want to try. Or buy them at all - I remember throwing out a ton of them when I was volunteering in a thrift place, just because they set and just pile up as more cookbooks get donated.

But yeah, it can be any number of small things that will shipwreck a sale. The picture issue is indeed a big deal on all your items as so many of them are out of focus, not clean, or even crop off part of the product. But the biggest issue is that (frankly) a lot of your shipping prices are completely outrageous. Switching to Media Mail will fix a lot of that.

annadryl · ‎05-14-2023

With shipping set at $53 for just one book it'll never even get any clicks. MM rate is $3.69 for >1lb, $4.35 for >2lb. Buyers know this and expect better shipping rates. What kind of shipping supplies cost fifty bucks for a book?

2013grotz · ‎05-14-2023

Couple more thoughts I had as I came back to this:

1) Readers Digest Condensed Books are another issue I could have brought up with the cookbooks. More or less nobody wants those unless it's for getting crafting supplies, so that's another good example. I actually have both been urged and have urged people to just toss them and not bother.

2) As for the Danielle Steel, I thought to research a few titles on ebay. These pretty much fit what most other books are if you try to get rid of them used. Most people generally just want a quick read which they can just pass on and generally don't want to pay much. So if a book is mass marketed enough, you'll have a glut of them to deal with on the used market and the resulting low prices. For Danielle Steel, the low end total cost is around $3.30-$3.50 per book and goes up very slowly from there. That's price of book + shipping. This story repeats itself on ebay and other sites/places with a number of books.

A lot of the sellers have advantages on shipping where they can do something like that, so you'll inevitably compete with enough of that you won't be able to move a book at a reasonable and even get noticed. As noted previously, $3.65 is the entry point for MM, so you're basically paying to give away books on ebay. The only real thing you can try if you don't have other sources is maybe finding a big box and putting a bunch of the Steel together, but besides that you'll probably end up either having to give them away or destroy them as I'm definitely having to consider with mine.

Books just don't sell well on ebay unless you have something very rare/specific and lots of years to sit on it without cost issues. But yeah, mass market stuff you just might as well forget even trying on ebay anymore.

terrycece62 · ‎05-14-2023

I buy a lot of books Please heed the advice/suggestion by other posters.

Have you thought about selling' book lots' by either subject(thriller,romance,self help, reference, children's) or author?

Good Luck

2013grotz · ‎06-04-2023

@2013grotz wrote:
Like with the Danielle Steel, I trip over those about every time I go out thrift shopping and probably could have 100's in short order if I was patient enough.

This came up in my notifications and reminded me of this statement and the fact I counted the very next time I thrift shopped after I wrote this. If anyone guessed or wants to guess how many I encountered and could have bought when I went... (spoiler ahead if you want to take the time to stop and take a stab) .... 26.... and this was not a large thrift store/operation either.