Scaling an ebay book store

[exprmntl]

Just out of personal interest I was looking at other eBay book sellers. I've see stores with over 700,000 items and was amazed at how someone would be able to list so many items. For a single person to list the books it would take many years so I would assume they have got employees doing listings for them. My main question for people on here is, what steps would you take to scale an eBay store to such huge proportions? 

Another thing I've noticed with these book stores is that some are based overseas and are able to post things for insanely cheap prices. For example, a person in the UK might be selling an item for $12.50 price plus postage to Australia, but in Australia I wouldn't be able to make more than a dollar on such an item with our postage prices.

What's your thoughts on this?

[twyngwyn]

If you're talking about the river in Egypt, they have their own website(s) and are big business

[cam-2793]

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@exprmntl wrote:

Just For example, a person in the UK might be selling an item for $12.50 price plus postage to Australia, but in Australia I wouldn't be able to make more than a dollar on such an item with our postage prices.

What's your thoughts on this?

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That would be for a smallish second hand book, probably less than 2cm thick and no tracking. So posted as a letter? In Oz that would be $2.50 ish for postage and $10 for book! Hopefully you would be able to source books for less than $9.

That said high volume sellers can make a dollar per book and still be profitable, sell 1000 books per week and that's $1000. Sell a book or 2 a week and you would definitely want larger margins. Only a devoted hobbyist doing it for love would work for $2 a week.

[davewil1964]

They have links into publishers, use publishers' data and pics (even when incorrect), guess at condition, upload everything in bulk, and can operate on small margins.

The Egyptian river sells new books exclusively, and they are not that cheap.

If you are talking the UK sellers listing on here, they send their books by the container load. So delivery times are a lottery.

And, as said, due to volume they don't have to make a lot per book to be viable.

You, I, twyngwyn are not in the same boat.

If you want to list 700k books you will have to source them purchase them, store them, pack and post them.

Find a level you are comfortable with. For me it is around 2k.