How can some afford to sell a book for $5 with free shipping?

[wmontyj]

I see that many of the books I have and would like to sell are listed for sale on ebay for around $5 with free shipping.  How can sellers afford to do that?  I would think doing all the work for a good listing (photos, descriptions, calculating shipping and so on) would eliminate any profit from such an inexpensive item.  There must be something going on which I don't know.

[tdl_collectibles]

I think I've heard that the affiliate marketing stuff they put in the boxes might make it worth it. Things like those Free Wine Vouchers, Food Delivery things, etc that they get some type of kickback on whenever the receiver uses the code or cashes the coupon in.    But for media mail, stuffing a box with that kind of stuff is against USPS rules, so maybe I'm missing something obvious or some are just cheating...

[ebooksdiva]

Those sellers may have a Commercial mail business account through USPS and pay a monthly fee and must mail a specific amount of books/ media monthly. 
what is commercial mail 

[inhawaii]

They got the book for a dollar, sold it for $5. they're making $4 profit, right?    😉

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Strangely, I think that's what some sellers think.

[mr_lincoln]

@wmontyj 

-Are they a newer Sellers?

-Price your books at a level that will yield your target profit.  You do NOT need to be the lowest priced item on eBay to make a sale

-How much do the books weight that you are talking about?

-Some people sell for very little profit for some strange reason ... it they are selling thousands per month that;s one thing, they can make a profit on volume.

[chapeau-noir]

These are mostly huge booksellers who purchase books by the truckload for pennies, don't offer combined shipping and have a pre-sort contract with the USPS (in common with other very large outfits). They make their money on volume.

ETA: I wouldn't waste my time listing most books but just donate. I'm cleaning out our two home libraries and pretty most of the clean-out is donated, with decently salable books that not every body has listed here. You can go through your books and do a quick look-up. Also, books series do still sell.

[jewelbiz]

This was October 27, 2023, the 1st time I ever went down to the street in front of my own apartment building to sell my books on the street, Broadway from 1 table.

i planned to stay there for a 2 hours time period around midday and I did.  I chose more expensive books to bring like from $10. To $20.  If I recall that 1st day I did real well.  Went down there again with books 2 more days again for the 2 hour time shift.

Am planning to hit the street my same exact place again starting April in front of my apartment building.   Wonder what my fancy neighbors think!

[rockyroadtradingpost]

That's so cool! Good for you. If I were walking by, I'd be sure to linger and buy a book or two.

[slippinjimmy]

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@ebooksdiva wrote:

Those sellers may have a Commercial mail business account through USPS and pay a monthly fee and must mail a specific amount of books/ media monthly. 
what is commercial mail 

---

If you ship 300 pieces at a time and do a 5 digit presort 1lb Media Mail is $2.80 per piece.

[6flipwoods]

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[1786davycrockett]

@wmontyj 

For 13 years, I worked for a huge national book chain.  Every week, we'd be handed computer run-off sheets of newer books which had reached the end of their shelf life.  We'd collect all the books on the sheets, box them up, and return them to the distributor, so that the store would be credited for the unsold copies.

A few weeks later, we'd receive boxes of the SAME titles, with DIFFERENT price stickers (with discounted prices) covering the previous ISBN codes, and these titles would be displayed on our discount displays.

After a few months, we would receive another set of computer run-off sheets, this time for the books on the discount displays; and these, again, we would box up, and ship off to a different distributor.

This new distributor would create huge skids, wrapped in plastic sheets, six feet high, with sealed and unmarked boxes of these books; and the skids would be auctioned off as "blind" lots, often for only pennies per book, mostly to warehouse booksellers -- and these "blind" lots are what you often see on the huge eBay sites dealing largely in "best sellers."

And these huge "warehouse" discount sellers sell such a huge volume of inventory on a daily basis, that they receive a special media discount through Pitney-Bowes.

Selling in volume for a small profit from each book, these warehouse sellers still make a sizable profit.

[lilyswan2]

not if the shipping is free as op stated....the book sellers do a lot of business so quantity and the inserts as someone stated may make it worth it? for the average person would not be anything but a waste of time or just a few cents for the effort...

[wmontyj]

Well I got some really good information!  I think that the net net bottom line for a single person trying to kind of clean up his library is to donate those $5 items to either the local library or the local thrift shop.   I try to put good photos and info in each listing and the $5 item just is not worth the trouble.  One other interesting idea is that if I have something really good I don't have to be the cheapest on the block, so to speak.

Many thanks for all the input!

Regards,

David Jackson

[ebeths_eclectic_collectibles]

Moral of the story is don’t sell books! Or CDs. It is either special or a losing proposition not worth the time and energy