book sellers: large books
Do you perceive any particular pattern in selling big heavy books (textbook size and up)? Mine seem to just take up space. Meanwhile I have to keep large boxes around to ship any that do miraculously sell. I don't know w hy they don't sell unless it's the cost of shipping. I am thinking of just stripping them out of my inventory which would be sad because a lot of them are nice books. Textbooks can be ok sellers but I usually don't have a lot of them.
13 comments
inhawaii
·9 months agoI'm looking for a coffee table book that you can use as a coffee table.
fm2000
·9 months agoSome of your books are unsellable at a profit because there are many copies of them from the book "megasellers" that are selling them for a near-loss or actual loss (probably making money by stuffing ads inside media mail packages, and/or other questionable practices). Your TCP/IP hardcover book listing has many promoted listings right below your listing, basically selling those books so cheap they are giving them away. Some of your hardcover books appear to possibly be outdated textbooks, which are usually worthless.
Some of your books are good to sell, but require a unicorn buyer to come along and will take a very long time to sell (yearbooks are typically like that.)
Always ship heavy hardcover books in a box. If it is over 2-3lbs and/or very large, use a box. In a polybag or even a padded envelope, a corner drop can split or destroy the binding.
To make your listings stand out, and draw book enthusiasts and collectors (who are the folks who buy books nowadays), include pictures of the front cover and the back cover, the copyright page and note which edition and printing a book is. And note any defects (most books, sometimes even new ones, have at least some minor defects). This is very important information for collectors and they look for that information. If a book has been sitting a long time, do some price research and make sure it is still worth selling.
christworks
·9 months agoI have been tempted to buy whole sets of nice encyclopedias. Some of them can do pretty well. I have the space to store such things, but I once shipped out a set of 60 hardback cookbooks. Never again. I'd rather ship a 13" CRT.
As far as textbooks, I've done well. A couple of years ago I found about a dozen new copies of this nurse practitioners textbook at the bin store. I paid $6 for all of them and sold them all for nearly $50 each in about a month. Crazy.
tobaccocardyahoo
·9 months agoI have rarely sold textbooks. It takes a different type of seller than other books. And it requires actually being sure they are the current edition, and whether a new edition is coming out soon. Most become worthless when a new edition comes out.
In the Internet age, the prices on other large books, "coffee table books" have dropped dramatically. Many sell so slowly that they aren't worth the space they occupy and people do not buy them for the same reason. The quality of production and content has also dropped.
I have pruned my offerings to be 90+% paper ephemera which fit in the USPS mail slot in the lobby of my building, and have 5K items in less space than 500 books would take. I usually sell the same number of dollars worth in a month that I sold on Amazon with 20k books listed.
keziak
OP9 months agoThat's what I am asking myself about what I guess could be called coffee table books. I am tempted into listing them due to higher prices but the sell-through just isn't there. then it comes down to, if they sell do I have a box to ship them in? I have a stack not listed yet and I'm thinking of just taking them to the used bookstore instead.
jonathanbrightlight
·9 months agoWe do sell some, but we’re a business with a warehouse space that includes room to store and ship large items. Since you’re doing this all yourself, if you’re not confident about having the shipping boxes and being able to ship them, don’t stress about them and go donate them. Very few sell for enough that I would suggest stressing about it. You can keep an eye out for the rare ones that are expensive if you want, and only deal with listing them, or you can just accept that the reduced hassle for you comes with the risk of passing up on something that could have made some money. Even for our business, we accept that sometimes we’ll miss potential money makers because something didn’t meet our guidelines or fit our expectations, and while it hurts to later realize you missed something, it’s often still better for you in the long run.
jonathanbrightlight
·9 months agoWe sell plenty of textbooks, and while we occasionally get a comment on the shipping cost, it doesn’t seem to pose an issue for most buyers. A bigger issue is that new editions of textbooks are released often, sometimes even every year, and the older ones sometimes aren’t even just less appealing, but become impossible to sell.
chapeau-noir
·9 months agoI've sold a lot of textbooks in the past year - textbooks as such have no inherent value, it's what they cover that makes them salable. I sold 90% statistical and advanced math books - durable subjects that are seldom revised and often expensive to purchase. An older edition in very good condition will still be relevant and save the buyer a lot of money.
kibble-net
·9 months agoI donated all of mine to a charity. If you calculate the dollars per month per cubic foot, there's just not enough money to be made.
This is the same reason I often steer clear of reselling heavy board games that contain hundreds of pieces of cardboard. If the shipping costs $5-$10 more due to weight, that's $5-$10 less the buyer's going to pay for the item itself.
Now if you're absolutely sure that a specific item has high enough demand and value, by all means go for it. But they are so few and far between.
bonanza125
·9 months agoOverall books are hard sellers unless you have stuff that people want. It could take years until you receive an offer.
squinkercat59
·9 months agoI sell yearbooks which can be large and heavy. Fortunately, I have shelf space to store them until the right person comes along, and we have room in our garage to store (flattened) boxes. In your case, there are specialty sites that deal in textbooks you may want to check out.
keziak
OP9 months agoAs I said, I don't have many textbooks just a lot of other tomes. I could keep just the most expensive ones I suppose but they may not sell quickly due to being expensive.
meme6253
·9 months agoI think it is the weight resulting in the cost of shipping sometimes surpassing the cost of the item.