Q&A: I'm doing well selling books on eBay in bulk. How much can I make selling individual books?
Question: I currently sell paperbacks in groups on Ebay and make about $50,000 profit a year. Could I realistically expect to be more profitable selling hardbacks individually?
Answer: If you are making 50K annually selling in bulk on eBay, you are definitely among the more successful sellers around, I'd say. If you are doing that kind of volume, you're obviously benefiting from repeat customers because you're providing good value. So I would caution you against anything that would cause you to lose focus on the successful things you're doing now.
I've never sold any bulk lots. About 50K a year is the most I've ever made from selling individual books, and I considered myself pretty lucky to do that -- lucky in the sense that I've found some good local sources for books. That is mainly because I live in a metro area (Washington D.C.) that has a lot of libraries that have frequent library sales, where it's pretty easy to buy several hundred good hardbacks a month for no more than $1 or $2 apiece. I've been doing it long enough to be able to skim the cream at book sales pretty efficiently.
When I say I've been clearing about 50K a year, that's just me working as a one-person business, probably 50 hours a week. I could probably squeeze more cash out of the business annually, if I always sold at the lowest price. But I tend to accumulate stock, with the aim of getting higher prices down the road for some of the more unique books. (This won't work for the average book in plentiful supply, because price tends to go down as more copies become available online.)
One thing you might consider is testing the waters of selling individual hardbacks. If you have the time and inclination, I suppose it would be possible to develop a sideline to your bulk bookselling, selling the unique book you find here and there to individual customers. That's only if you have any spare time left from your current business, of course.
In my book "The Home-Based Bookstore" I advocate selling individual titles on Amazon because it seems more efficient to me than selling individual titles on eBay. But since you're an active eBayer, if you had an eBay store it might work to cross-promote some higher-end individual titles from your bulk listings. If you wanted, you could list the same books on Amazon Marketplace if they're selling at a higher price there.
Answer: If you are making 50K annually selling in bulk on eBay, you are definitely among the more successful sellers around, I'd say. If you are doing that kind of volume, you're obviously benefiting from repeat customers because you're providing good value. So I would caution you against anything that would cause you to lose focus on the successful things you're doing now.
I've never sold any bulk lots. About 50K a year is the most I've ever made from selling individual books, and I considered myself pretty lucky to do that -- lucky in the sense that I've found some good local sources for books. That is mainly because I live in a metro area (Washington D.C.) that has a lot of libraries that have frequent library sales, where it's pretty easy to buy several hundred good hardbacks a month for no more than $1 or $2 apiece. I've been doing it long enough to be able to skim the cream at book sales pretty efficiently.
When I say I've been clearing about 50K a year, that's just me working as a one-person business, probably 50 hours a week. I could probably squeeze more cash out of the business annually, if I always sold at the lowest price. But I tend to accumulate stock, with the aim of getting higher prices down the road for some of the more unique books. (This won't work for the average book in plentiful supply, because price tends to go down as more copies become available online.)
One thing you might consider is testing the waters of selling individual hardbacks. If you have the time and inclination, I suppose it would be possible to develop a sideline to your bulk bookselling, selling the unique book you find here and there to individual customers. That's only if you have any spare time left from your current business, of course.
In my book "The Home-Based Bookstore" I advocate selling individual titles on Amazon because it seems more efficient to me than selling individual titles on eBay. But since you're an active eBayer, if you had an eBay store it might work to cross-promote some higher-end individual titles from your bulk listings. If you wanted, you could list the same books on Amazon Marketplace if they're selling at a higher price there.
posted by Steve Weber at 12/19/2005
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