eBay

wernerwagonec · ‎12-22-2016

Thriftbooks' prices make selling books difficult. Every time I go to list a book, Thriftbooks is selling the same book for almost nothing. Frustrating!

bugler1998 · ‎01-03-2017

The great majority of my books do not have isbn numbers, usually due to age. When I see a place to fill in an isbn numbers in the listing forms, I usually say not available, unless of course there is one.

If my booksdo not have an isbn number, does ebay drop me down in search anyway?

I ask this even though every copy of a 1929 Mark Twain book will have similar problems for other sellers, but I can see an issue if I sell a 1st printing of a 1952 charity cookbook, that is also issued as a 1992 16th printing.

blue*skies*ahead* · ‎01-06-2017

Bugler, why not list in "Antiquarian and Collectible" book category? Maybe I'm missing something.

iart · ‎09-25-2017

We've ordered from this seller and similar sellers. Almost half the books we've gotten were wrong. Soft covers, not hard. Not firsts. Not signed. Condition off.

This is because they hire untrained, minimum wage workers to list their books. And then they put a ton of energy into returns, voiding feedback and more to mask their mistakes.

dreambooks · ‎09-25-2017

This is the solution - sell better books.

@fine.books wrote:
@joesoucie22012 wrote:
The only way to beat the mega listers is dont sell junk books. Before you buy a book you have to know what your doing.
This is the solution - sell better books.

.

betterworldbooks is another mega seller of the same magnitude.

jamesquinn-half · ‎10-22-2017

One way for small and medium stized sellers to distinguish themselves from mega sellers is by including in their description that they ship hardbacks in cardboard boxes.

Anyone who has bought from the mega sellers knows how frustrating it is to receive large hardback books shipped in unpadded plastic bag mailers, often three or four in a single bag. It is not the post office's fault that all these books arrive dented and bumped. The mega sellers knows while packaging them that way that they are going to arrived damaged, but don't care. They apparently prefer the 10 or 15 cent savings to acting like a professonal responsible seller.

If eBay was responsible they would not allow any bookseller to list a hardback in anything above "Good" condition if they did not mail it in a box.

Anyway, I would encourage small and medium sellers to recognize the largest advantage they have over the mega-sellers is that they can provide responsible professional customer service. The big sellers do not even try to do this. So try to emphasis that in your listings.

joesoucie22012 · ‎10-22-2017

It is not a question of purchasing a book published in the last 25 years. That is nonsense.

rubens101 · ‎12-21-2017

Ha!
They can sell at low prices because they will send you a different book than what was ordered. They do not reply to emails if you do not receive an order. They get away with it. Only order from reliable individual sellers. They are too big to complain about. Nothing will happen to them.
P.S. Their prices are not always cheaper.

westcoastetraders · ‎02-21-2018

Thriftbooks is not the only megadealer on ebay, wonderbooks also as well as several others, there item descriptions are very vague and all generally have stock photoss as well as duplicate listings for the same book. And when you message them to ask a question about a book they send you the standard reply of how they get to many emails every day and can't answer questions about specific books. So I don't purchase it. There are a great many other sellers from amazon who do the same exact thing. Alot of times I have purchased a book thinking it was the regular sized hardcover instead of the smaller publisher & book club editions, and of course when I ask I get the same standard reply. I do not try to compete with the megadealers, I have just changed my strategy for selling on ebay and do my best to be fair and reasonable in my pricing. If a book is in less than good condition I don't list it, just not worth the time to me. I also like to make sure there are plenty of good pictures of the book and a really accurate item description as best as I am able. This seems to have worked for me. Hope I have been helpful.

taylor_memorial · ‎02-22-2018

@joesoucie22012wrote:
It is not a question of purchasing a book published in the last 25 years. That is nonsense.

Actually it's more like the last 45 years, although bar codes didn't come into use until about 30 years or so ago.

Those are the books that the commodity sellers try to keep in stock.

For a while, we (the Friends group I work with) were selling our overstock to Discover Books, a mega seller out of Chicago. They pulled out of our area because they weren't getting enough books to warrant their presence--only 650,000 or so a quarter.

They have developed software that goes beyond the Amazon rank and file method, which uses OCR to scan titles and compare prices across platforms so that the same book can be listed by them at various competitive prices on many sites at once.

cumos55 · ‎02-23-2018

Three of the mega sellers each have their own website.... Everything is presented in an orderly fashion n these websites.... clean, clear and no mess whatsoever.

and then on eBay.... these sellers have created a mess..... with the emphasis on poor picture presentation, coupled with a poor description of the book and with a generic, non-specific description of condition.

ozarkjoe · ‎02-25-2018

I've gotten cheap books from them and then discovered that the book was signed by the author. You take your chances and win sometimes.

cumos55 · ‎04-26-2018

Recently saw Thrift Books advertising their website on eBay.

Thrift books has about 4 million listings on eBay...

and .....Now they advertise their website..... and promote the off eBay selling of books... on... eBay

silkcentral611 · ‎09-11-2018

I was not aware of this seller until today. I tried to buy a book but when I clicked into the listing there was no way to make the purchase. No "buy-it-now", no auction - nuthin'! It looked like a normal listing except for that one little thing. How can they do that?