Free shipping on sale of $4 books?

[glccwarren]

Browsing some book listings trying to determine if I want to add some book listings and am seeing something I don't understand.  For example a book being listed for $4.07 with free shipping.  Depending on the weight of the book and shipping option (Ground Advantage for really light books or Media mail), shipping is close to $4 and then add the final value fee of at least $.90 plus packing materials and it seems to me that the seller is selling at a loss of over at least a $1.  What am I missing?

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@glccwarren   Sellers that are listing books that way are either clueless about shipping costs OR high volume book sellers that use some sales as "loss leaders"  to drive traffic to their account.   

The eBay algorithm likes active accounts.  Send offers to buyers, revise stale listings, list at least an item or two if possible everyday.  

[glccwarren]

Thank you for the response.  It prompted me to take a closer look at the specific seller.  When I went to the seller site they had hundreds of books selling like that.  But it appears it sort of a click and bait.  The free shipping is Media Mail, but prospective buyers are encouraged to go with DGM SmartMail for $4.95 per item for faster delivery.  So, if a buyer buys 4 books they are paying $19.80 in shipping which would be less that $10 media mail. 

Anyway, I do have some follow-up questions related to your response.  1. Why do I care about eBay liking an active account? Serious question; not a "being a jerk" question.  2. Send offers to buyers I'm assuming you are referring to people who are watching an item?   3. Revise stale listings: how old is stale?  And is anything requiring me to hit the revise button counts?

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@glccwarren.   All 3 suggestions to let the system know that you're account is active and can help a bit with getting your listings up in best match searches....provided of course that your listing is a best match. 

Revising listing titles is a good idea as it makes the item reindex to the site , also changing up keywords in your title can help buyers find an item. 

Offers to buyers help.  I often get other sales right after I send them, sometimes the item even sells at full price to someone else. 

As for what is considered a stale listing I'd say about 3 months is a good time to end and sell similar.   When you do this it creates an exact copy of your listing with a different item number.  The system considers this a new listing. 

Bottom line all of the above is to help you sell. 

[glccwarren]

All makes sense.  Thank you for taking the time to respond.