How's it going anymore? are your books selling, or languising? I'm finding it hard to get at all enthusiastic about listing single books any more due to low sales. [I"m doing as much as I can with lots].
Before someone chimes in about how books are dead in general, I am getting way more sales than ever on Amazon, where "list more, sell more" actually works. I think the Goodwills and Thriftbooks have killed the book market here. 
@keziak wrote:How's it going anymore? are your books selling, or languising? I'm finding it hard to get at all enthusiastic about listing single books any more due to low sales. [I"m doing as much as I can with lots].
Before someone chimes in about how books are dead in general, I am getting way more sales than ever on Amazon, where "list more, sell more" actually works. I think the Goodwills and Thriftbooks have killed the book market here.
Yes, the mega-sellers have killed the book market here ... and then to make matters even worse, non-mega sellers then start a Race-To-The Bottom to beat the mega-sellers prices.
Great for buyers, but a nail in the coffin for non-mega-sellers both here and at Amazon, where the mega-sellers ALSO sell.
Fascinating though why the non-mega-sellers don't just wait for the mega-seller's books to sell, and then list their own books ..... rather then perpetuatng their Race-To-The Bottom pricing model.
Doing that would NOT eliminate the Race-To-The Bottom pricing strategy of most Ebay book sellers ..... but at least it would give them a higher base line selling price to start with.
@flipper2flipper wrote:
@keziak wrote:How's it going anymore? are your books selling, or languising? I'm finding it hard to get at all enthusiastic about listing single books any more due to low sales. [I"m doing as much as I can with lots].
Before someone chimes in about how books are dead in general, I am getting way more sales than ever on Amazon, where "list more, sell more" actually works. I think the Goodwills and Thriftbooks have killed the book market here.
Yes, the mega-sellers have killed the book market here ... and then to make matters even worse, non-mega sellers then start a Race-To-The Bottom to beat the mega-sellers prices.
Great for buyers, but a nail in the coffin for non-mega-sellers both here and at Amazon, where the mega-sellers ALSO sell.
Fascinating though why the non-mega-sellers don't just wait for the mega-seller's books to sell, and then list their own books ..... rather then perpetuatng their Race-To-The Bottom pricing model.
Doing that would NOT eliminate the Race-To-The Bottom pricing strategy of most Ebay book sellers ..... but at least it would give them a higher base line selling price to start with.
Just adding one more thing that I thought of to my comments above.
When an Ebay book seller starts his / her Race-To-The Bottom pricing to beat a mega-seller's book price ..... the Ebay seller assumes that the mega-seller actually has the book in stock.
If you look at the negative and neutral feedback numbers for the mega-sellers, they have very high negative and neutral feedback for Out Of Stock comments from buyers.
That is NOT important to the mega-sellers because they have thousands of positive feedbacks in the same time period ...... which effectively keeps their defect rate low enough to NOT affect them.
But when an Ebay seller starts his / her Race-To-The Bottom pricing based on the mega-seller's baseline price on a book that is or will eventually turn out to be Out of Stock, then the Ebay seller's pricing strategy turned out to be a serious mistake.
It is not uncommon for a mega-seller to list the same book, at the same price on both Ebay and Amazon at the same time ..... and that could be one of the reasons that there are so many Out of Stock feedback comments for the mega-sellers on Ebay ...... ( because the mega-seller was either slow to cancel the listing on Ebay, or because the mega-seller did not care spend the time to cancel the listing ....... and did not care if they got one more Out of Stock defect because their actual sales volume of fulfilled orders per month is so large ..... probably several thousand books and probably a 98% or more fulfillment rate, so a few more defects won't actually hurt their "rolling 12 month defect % ) ).
My summary of all of my rambling above is:
When an Ebay seller starts his / her Race-To-The Bottom pricing based on the mega-seller's baseline price of a book that is or that will eventually turn out to be Out of Stock, then the Ebay seller's pricing strategy turned out to be a serious mistake.
Obviously, an Ebay seller has no way of knowing whether or not the mega-seller actually has the book in stock ...... but when you play the Race-To-The Bottom Game of pricing, that is one of the risks that you take.
Perhaps Ebay should consider lowering the Acceptable Defect Rate for the mega-sellers ?
Just my 2 cents of observation as an ocasional book buyer and as an occasional book seller on Ebay.
@keziak wrote:How's it going anymore? are your books selling, or languising? I'm finding it hard to get at all enthusiastic about listing single books any more due to low sales. [I"m doing as much as I can with lots].
Before someone chimes in about how books are dead in general, I am getting way more sales than ever on Amazon, where "list more, sell more" actually works. I think the Goodwills and Thriftbooks have killed the book market here.
I collect vintage books from the 1950's-1980's, and I also buy newer books here and there. As a buyer, I actually prefer single listings if the seller offers discounted combined shipping. I have over 1,900 Gothic paperbacks, so when I see lots oftentimes I have too many of the books in the lot to buy it.
I do a lot of my used book buying on Amazon because they have more individual sellers instead of larger companies who tend to dropship trash to my front door. I find that average Jane and Joe's usually send you good copies of books.
