are books just terrible sellers or what?

[jamesgriffindubbo]

nobody wants books ive found. theyre bulky junk that are impossible to get rid of, they have NEGATIVE VALUE most of th etime because there's an associated cost with disposing of them.

i stuggle to sell them anywhere, and even worse because of the way AusPost calculates shipping (width of item) the minimum shipping fee on them, even small books like a pocket dictionary is normally about $9.00, making them even more impossible to get rid of. ive had buyers try to scab a four book bundle off me for $1 and i took it because i knew nobody else would buy them anyway.

NEVER buying a book again becausae when or if you ever wanna re-sell it you know you wont be able to get rid of it without dumping it in a charity bin somewhere (where  it'll just be thrown in a regular bin after most likely).

[digital*ghost]

---

@jamesgriffindubbo wrote:

do you know how to make

arrows

don't worry don't worry you'll learn

---

I quite literally know how to make a lot of things, armour more than weaponry, but that skill-set lends itself well  t'other if / when needed. 

No one here is going to be able to help you - aside from the fact that you clearly don't want any help in acheiving sales, there are only two forms of help that can actually be offered:Tips and advice from people who sell things, and tips and advice from people who buy things. The number of people who have given up on ebay but hang out in the ebay forums anyway and can issue you your much-desired "your'e g*damm right" are few and far between, but there are a couple.

Maybe one of those guys will be along soon to satisfy you - here's hoping, anyway. 

[springyzone]

---

@jamesgriffindubbo wrote:

nobody wants books ive found. theyre bulky junk that are impossible to get rid of, they have NEGATIVE VALUE most of th etime because there's an associated cost with disposing of them.

NEVER buying a book again becausae when or if you ever wanna re-sell it you know you wont be able to get rid of it without dumping it in a charity bin somewhere (where  it'll just be thrown in a regular bin after most likely).

---

It depends what books. I'm responding here as a buyer and I can tell you that I have on occasional bought books from ebay and from other online sites. I'm not just talking distant past either, but recently.

I don't think a low price is necessarily a turn off either, I'd be delighted to see some of the books I am after at a bargain price.

But in your shoes as a seller, what I would be inclined to do is match some books up, perhaps  2 in a similar category, then put up a price that is inclusive of postage. "Free post'

I may be wrong here as it is ages since I sold but my suspicion is a lot of buyers don't like it when postage is dearer than the item. It makes them question whether it is worth it. But if they see an ad for 2 books and the total is eg $14, they would rather pay that than eg $5 with $9 postage. I wouldn't write 'one book free' either, give both books weighting.

I agree with you your dictionary probably isn't a best selling item. I could be wrong. But again, you have it as $3.50 with postage of over $9. You'd need to advertise that for almost $14 post free and dictionaries are one thing people can readily get at op shops for less. If you bundled it with a thesaurus or a student guide to grammar though, you may have some luck.

If you try a few things to tweak your ads and you still can't sell here, you could try Facebook marketplace or you could donate to an op shop.

I was startled by your comment that you are never buying a book again because of the resale value. 

When the lockdown was announced in Melb on Friday, my first action when i got home was to gather my bag and head off to the library. They also have a rack of books on sale (50c each).

When I buy a book, it is because I want to read it, not because of what resale value it has. I often buy at op shops and the library and once I have read them, donate them back. Not everything has to be for profit.

But if you want a profit with your things, maybe tweak your ads, see how you go.

[davewil1964]

In my experience, springy, item price being less than postage doesn't put buyers off.

I have plenty of books listed for $6-8 plus $8.95 (soon to be $9.15) postage and they sell. Probably 3/4 of my parcel sized books would be in that category. There's not a huge amount of profit in them, but they keep the turnover turning over.

[*tippy*toes*]

I have just read through this entire thread (there's 15 minutes I'll never get back). From one seller to another, end your listings and throw the books in the bin. You have made it blatantly clear you aren't after help or advice, you have a massive case of poor me, and I'm not sure what you expect by posting here. You have had several large volume book sellers giving their advice, and you've dismissed everything.

As a long term seller, if I have items that are slow to sell, I increase the price. For reasons no-one knows, they sell after the price has increased. 

Do yourself a favour, close your eBay account down. You don't need the stress.

[bubblebooks2020]

If you sell all the books you have listed, after fees you will make a profit of about $12 to $14. All this angst for $12?

And to answer your question, I have sold loads of books for over $50 that ive paid less than $2 for, so no books are not terrible sellers. I guess you just have to really love books 

[springyzone]

---

@davewil1964 wrote:

In my experience, springy, item price being less than postage doesn't put buyers off.

I have plenty of books listed for $6-8 plus $8.95 (soon to be $9.15) postage and they sell. Probably 3/4 of my parcel sized books would be in that category. There's not a huge amount of profit in them, but they keep the turnover turning over.

---

I am sure you are right as I can imagine paying that if you had a  book I was after.

Although the postage is a little dearer, it isn't a huge difference.

With the OP though, I noticed he had a dictionary for, I think it was $3 or $3.50 and the postage was over $9. That sort of difference would give me pause, it seems a much bigger discrepancy, although again, if it happened to be for something I was after, I'd perhaps pay it.

The one thing I did notice was the OP would advertise one book and write "plus one free book'.

It may be that some people would be just as interested in the free book as the one being sold so if I were selling, I'd just be listing the titles and basic description, not making it sound as if the second book had little worth.

I could be wrong as it isn't an area I ever sold a lot in. I recall we did sell several books though and I was surprised one time that they did so well. They were by some author I had never heard of but apaprently there was a bit of a Christian following for the novels. 

[digital*ghost]

This is one of those things that really varies from buyer to buyer, and - to a certain degree - from category to category. I know sellers that have items for less than $1 and postage over $9 (parcel rates), but of course the vast majority of the time people are going to buy multiple items and will usually spend more on items than they do on postage.

Most of my item prices are AUD $3-$5 and in the past, I've had US buyers tell me my postage costs were too high (when they were less than USD $3) and one even asked me if I could lower the postage cost because it was more than the item price and this was apparently wrong "on principle", but now I only use Aus Post parcels, so postage to the US is about 5 times what it used to be. Strangely, it hasn't affected sales or sales patterns that much, at least not from when my costs were about 40% lower and quoting for DHL tracked packages (old DHL pricing). I still get plenty of $5 purchases with $20 postage costs being paid, which surprised me, as i thought I'd just get a trickle of multiple item purchases. A few people have spent $5-$10 and paid over $30 for international express, as i finally added that in as an option a few weeks back. I've also not had one person tell me my postage is too high - the closest was someone asking me "does it really cost that much?"

I combined the niche and numbers strategy though, I suppose (or, I'm trying to lol). The category I sell in is saturated, but I specialise in a specific material and it can be a bit harder to find items made from it sometimes. Availability definitely is a factor. I've looked through some of the bigger stores when they have promotions running, and they have a lot of supermarket items in addition to their other ranges - eg toiletries, snacks and so on. If I needed bandaids, I'm probably not going to shop online for those specifically. And I certainly wouldn't pay $10 postage to get them (and only them) to me when I can pick them up super easy next time I'm at a supermarket, but if I was buying something else, and needed to spend a little bit more to qualify for some kind of promotion, I'd definitely add to cart if that was the only other thing in the shop I had a need for. 

I still use letters for Aus orders so I don't have as much of a data pool for how high postage could be before people would no longer be interested in buying one or multiple items. I am extremely tempted (and have been for a while) to try a flat rate of around $7, though, instead of my current $3 for letters and charging parcel prices if / when needed. This would allow everything to go tracked (letter or parcel) and parcel lockers would no longer be an issue. 

Anyway, I'm rambling on and have gone off on a few tangents, I mostly just mean to say postage and how high it is (within reason) only seems to be a primary consideration for a lot of buyers when there's more opportunity for it to not have to be paid, I think so anyway. 

[chameleon54]

---

@instylecollectables wrote:

Some of the book sellers on this forum would beg to differ and are selling books pretty well often than not.

I suppose it depends on what sort of books you're selling?

---

Books are the main item I sell on ebay and it works for me. Sold one today for over $100 and that's pretty normal ( at least one per week in the $100 - $300 price range, often more ) Recently I started volunteering at a local charity bookshop, assisting in identifying the more valuable books and helping them to realise the full potential value. 

This has given an interesting insight into what percentage of books doing the rounds are actually valuable. We have set a minimum of $40 to classify a book as valuable, ( no reason other than that is my average selling price for books on ebay.)

Of the many hundreds of books that go through the bookshop each week as donations, only around 2% are worth over $40. In amongst that 2% though are some worth hundreds of dollars. 

Books are excellent sellers on ebay, but like everything, you have to know what the buyers want, how to find it and then how to sell it. The days of dumping whatever junk is lying around and expecting it to sell are long gone.