repricing
I get really bogged down and tired of repricing and I wonder if there are ways that do not involve researching all over again. I run sales of 20% off for the books I've had longest (though the oldest are just Nov 2025).
I feel like when evaluating repricing listings I need to (1) check for current price per condition or (2) check how many copies are listed or (3) remove books with no Sold history.
12 comments
lakefor94
·8 months agoI don't sell any books @keziak. I do check my pricing about 3 tines per year for my products, 1500+ listings.
Checking mostly my competitors on eBay and also Google the authorized distributors. I do look at ebay solds for quite a few products.
I price everything to sell. Everything has to have an opportunity to sell and it is up to me to price effectively.
I am not in love with any product I have. Move 'em out.
keziak
OP8 months agoI feel the same way. I do have books that I think are very nice and I do not know for sure why they don't sell. But my space is limited and I can't afford the space to hang onto what I think are nice books if they do not sell. I almost never sell books I've had for a year.
christworks
·8 months agoRarely do I go back to look up items if they have not sold. It is far easier to reduce the price and certainly that saves time. Saving time = making money since I have leftover time I can spend listing (hopefully) better items.
The way I look at it is if I have something that has been around 18 months or longer, then it is either going to get donated or trashed during my next inventory purge. I'd rather make $10 off it than get to that point. At least I claw back some money or make a little profit at least.
There are exceptions. If it is an item that should have sold, I will do another look up to see where the market is. I did an inventory purge earlier this month. There were about 50 items I delisted. There were a few more that I almost delisted, but instead decided to take a few minutes and do new research on them. I re-priced at the market and a few of those raw hide items, as I call them, have already sold.
There are also certain items that I'm willing to hang on to as long as needed. I enjoy selling replacement parts and pieces to small appliances, toys, etc. These are generally small items, easy to store, and I know I'm waiting for the buyer who needs that piece to come along. I view those things through a different lens.
I am about to the point that I am going to no longer list motor bases to small appliances. They do sell, but normally not for very much and they tend to take longer. I'm debating whether it is worth my time doing the testing on them, making a video that shows they work, and then storing them. They are larger and thus more challenging to ship and shipping is more expensive on them.
onefootflipper
·8 months agoI don't even look at it per item, fact is you can have the best price on ebay and still be 10 times too higher than anyone would ever pay. With me everything drops 10 percent every 3 months. When stuff falls below $5 those are the first things I look at getting rid of when I need space.
bashort
·8 months agoI rarely ever reprice anything, I just let it set for sale and let inflation gradually lower the price over the next number of years.
eric.lang
·8 months agoI don't care how long it takes for books to sell the market will go up eventually I always price at the bottom and maybe do a 2% ad fee to get it out the door fast.
tobaccocardyahoo
·8 months agoThat depends on the books you choose to offer.
There are many books which become worthless. Examples include former Oprah Book Club selections which will always be in greater supply than demand. The old time classic for worthless books was the Reader's Digest Condensed Books.
If one selects books which are of merit, were not bestsellers, and were not fads one can use your strategy. I do that but I offer very little fiction, no textbooks, no self-help books, and exclude many other books from my inventory. When I used to go to FOL sales, I would arrive at least 2 hours after the sale began when the scanner jockeys had already cleared many of the books I never would have considered.
keziak
OP8 months agoMy friend loves to go to booksales on the last day when they go by the bag. She usually claims to have found better books t han on the first night. There are a lot that scanner bots do not take. For me, ebay is not a carbon copy of Amazon (which they buy for). My problem is that I get stressed out using the cumbersome ebay app when a hundred other people in the room are grabbing everything in sight. I don't go to most of the sales anymore, I work on other sources. But I use the app and (obviously) do not buy low value books. I may have too many books with high supply though.
kibble-net
·8 months agoIf an item doesn't sell for several months, I will either lower it by $2 to $5, or bundle it with similar items. Not much thinking required!
keziak
OP8 months agoI don't really want to have anything listed at $5 and try not to use $7 for the most part. I've used sales to bulk discount older books but the results of that have been anemic.
bonanza125
·8 months agoThis is all part of business. In addition if you feel very boggled down and tired of repricing I would maybe suggest reduce the amount of inventory you are managing and wait until you sell items and then list whenever something sells. Yes if you price stuff too high buyers may not pay the price and if you have 2000 listings to reprice that will take a lot of time to research current market value.
keziak
OP8 months agoI wouldn't try to reprice everything, rather, the books from the oldest months.
Based on some commentary here I suspect I price at a higher condition than many other listings at a lower condition but the supply of such books is probably working against me. Not sure about books with no recent sold history: scarce and waiting on a buyer, or nobody wants?