Do books sell on ebid?

[Spot50]

Now over 2200 items listed but still on less than 50 sales in total since September......

[deanosaur1972]

Now over 2200 items listed but still on less than 50 sales in total since September......

That is vastly more sales than I managed in my first 6 months, but now I am almost up to 5,000 items sold on eBid and 1,810 were in 2013.

Good job on the listing work and those initial sales...... your platform is growing.

[johnwash1]

Now over 2200 items listed but still on less than 50 sales in total since September......

Well done! Listing that many must be a huge amount of work.

I'm not a book seller, so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. I got curious, so I had a look at the first 50 of your books. Mostly paperbacks. I guess your competition would be the local charity shops and Amazon. Round here the charity shops have gradually ramped up their prices, so I think yours compare well. Amazon's 2.80 + 1p for so many paperbacks, maybe that's the price point you have to aim for?

But if you accepted visitors, so they don't have to pay postage, maybe that would get extra sales? West Brom must be well populated. But maybe it's not worth the hassle of some visitors.

Glad to see books aren't going to waste though. Good luck.

[Spot50]

Well done! Listing that many must be a huge amount of work.

I'm not a book seller, so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. I got curious, so I had a look at the first 50 of your books. Mostly paperbacks. I guess your competition would be the local charity shops and Amazon. Round here the charity shops have gradually ramped up their prices, so I think yours compare well. Amazon's 2.80 + 1p for so many paperbacks, maybe that's the price point you have to aim for?

But if you accepted visitors, so they don't have to pay postage, maybe that would get extra sales? West Brom must be well populated. But maybe it's not worth the hassle of some visitors.

Glad to see books aren't going to waste though. Good luck.

I used to allow collections when I first started selling on The Other Place but stopped when one time a very shifty looking chap parked outside the house and stayed there for over 2 hours. I was at work but it spooked my wife and our 2 young (at the time) daughters so I immediately put a stop to collection as an option. The buyer had not requested or stated he intended to collect his purchase, nor did he state why he had waited outside for 2 hours. I didn't know until after he'd gone or I'd have asked him myself.

As for Amazons £2.81 price, I'm not sure what that relates to (I would never buy books from Amazon) but a lot of the large size paperbacks now fall into the £2.60 postage cost so I would not want to offer at that price.

[cerealmunkee]

i don't envy anyone trying to sell Books now...i mean the shipping costs are crazy and the competition seem to love giving the things away, the A££zon sellers can do this (I think, unless they're losing) due to obtaining preferential postal rates due to holding RM business accounts, but when you take the 20% fee that is applied over there then you have to question How?...although i dare say that there are cases where these items could be "out of stock".

[johnwash1]

I used to allow collections when I first started selling on The Other Place but stopped when one time a very shifty looking chap parked outside the house and stayed there for over 2 hours. I was at work but it spooked my wife and our 2 young (at the time) daughters so I immediately put a stop to collection as an option. The buyer had not requested or stated he intended to collect his purchase, nor did he state why he had waited outside for 2 hours. I didn't know until after he'd gone or I'd have asked him myself.

As for Amazons £2.81 price, I'm not sure what that relates to (I would never buy books from Amazon) but a lot of the large size paperbacks now fall into the £2.60 postage cost so I would not want to offer at that price.

Mmm, weird. Maybe he just wanted the book a lot! And was amazingly patient. But I understand how it would affect you.

2.81 because what the buyer sees is 1p for the book, plus 2.80 standard charge for postage. It's truly crazy, especially with large or heavy books, but that's the competition we're up against when a book is a common one, resulting in a race to the bottom by sellers over there.

Sadly, the books I want myself are rarely so cheap!

[crafters_corner]

(I would never buy books from Amazon)

Really? May I ask why?

I have purchased some excellent hardback OOP books on river and estuary birds from there at £2.80 including postage.

Had they been available on eBid I would have preferred to purchase them here; but I doubt they would have been at that price.

Yes, booksellers have a hard time. I used to post over a dozen every Monday morning when I sold on the other side. Now I wouldn't waste my time listing. BUT, when it comes to buying, I wouldn't cut off my nose to spite my face.

[Spot50]

Really? May I ask why?.

No major reason, I just don't use Amazon for books.

[Spot50]

Approaching 2500 listings! and still less than 50 sales.......my shop, SPOT THE BOOK is eleventh in the shop listing under the Books, Comics and Magazines category (out of 204 shops listed) I will keep listing but it seems such a lot of effort for such a small return.

[crafters_corner]

Approaching 2500 listings! and still less than 50 sales.......my shop, SPOT THE BOOK is eleventh in the shop listing under the Books and Magazines category (out of 204 listed) I will keep listing but it seems such a lot of effort for such a small return.

I sympathise, Spot. Bookselling is a difficult region nowadays. I used to have excellent sales on eBay, in those days almost any book on any subject would get a sale. I now see them in the charity shops and at car boots, attracting no interest whatsoever. One of my bestsellers was Delia Smith - I didn't sell fiction - but now her books are unwanted, as are the vast majority of cookbooks. Textbooks still sell well on Amazon and my old university books will still fetch good prices.

I don't think we can point to the demise of book sellingone in one particular direction. But the mega-selllers is definitely one; the Kindle plays a small part; but I believe that a huge proportion of people will now find what they want on Google. So why spend their hard-earned money on buying books?

Good luck to you, Spot.