New books?
I'm interested in this thread because I sell new books. I'm not doing all that well with my feebay shop, which costs me £6 a month and book sales never reach that!
Anyone got an opionion on whether they would sell on here? I know there's no fees but my time is also extremely precious!
Sussexbooks.
Good grief, did you really have to resurrect a thread that's over a year old? You can make your own you know.
I think the bottom has fallen out of the book market at the moment, and new books, depending on what they are, seem, in the main to be very very low value. Fiction is particularly low value.
Books are selling on here, and it's picking up, I had nothing at all for the first 4 months and since then I've sold 14, so nothing to write home about, but thats 14 sales I wouldn't have had otherwise.
However, as you say, over the other side, the sales are also very slow, with the added trauma of fees, and relisting fees, which eat away at what little profit there is to be had. My last lot of listings just about turned a profit, with the ones that sold paying for the listing fees of those that didn't, I haven't bothered relisting there.
The beauty of listing here is that even if things do take a while to sell, it's not costing anything while they wait, and it's getting busier all the time as the dark side implodes.
Having said all that, I also intend to cart my listings off to other sides and spread them around a bit, (although this is home) I don't think using just one site cuts it any more.
I think you will find that you do very well here. I've noticed via searches that new books are missing in listings here - so you would be filling a gap. There are lots of readers on this site alreadyOriginally Posted by sussexbooks
and most are selling their used books. Give it a serious effort and let us know when your shop is open.
"Good grief, did you really have to resurrect a thread that's over a year old? You can make your own you know."
I've only just joined. I have not familiarised myself with the interface or the forums. I just saw this thread about books and posted to it. That was my first posting on any forum on ebid. Thanks for the welcome (?)
Feebay is costing me £6 a month and no sales. It's rubbish isn't it?
HW
Hi KLJ
Sorry forgot to say, I sell only local history books that I have published myself.
HW
Sorry, that wasn't meant to be mean, it was meant to be firmly tongue in cheek. Clearly I came over all wrong, many apologies, welcome to eBideveryone is welcome.
The date of posts are written in the top left hand corner. This used to be a very slow forum, which is why there are so many very old threads lying around accidentally getting brought back, you are by no means the only one to resurrect an old thread, hence my comment.
I agree, £6 a month might not seem that much, but when you add it to the 3p per item , it comes to silly money; I have nearly 3000 books, it would cost a fortune to have that lot lying around in an evilBay shop, and I'm not confident that after the fvf, and paypal fees on top, I would end up with any money at all, it would all go to evilBay. (which is more or less what happened last time I did any auctions). Not to mention the fact that I have no confidence that there would be any visibility, despite my dsrs being high.
It might be slow here, but at least I'm not leaching money. We all have to do our own promotion and raise the profile of the site, not one person I've spoken to so far has ever heard of eBid, in fact they get the name confused and assume I'm talking about the dark side and have made a verbal typo until I explain. We really need some publicity somehow, although apart from word of mouth, and flyers in all my parcels I'm a bit clueless how to do it.
Have you thought of creating your own Amazon page and selling on there? I think that's what I'd do, as well as having a shop here. There is also Lulu for self published books to which you own the copyright. It might help with a few sales. Your local history books sound very interesting, and what a rich vein of history you have to tap into
How about getting ads in the local tourist board shops? My brother in law has a book out about walks on the Isle of Wight, and he's done that, as well as getting in with the local ramblers association, and other local organisations whose members may have an interest, his book is apparently selling very well.
Hi sussexbooks, I've only just found this thread, thanks, but it still seems relevant to me. I have sold quite a few secondhand local history books on other sites so there is a demand, and local and family historians tend to use the internet a lot.
It might work if you promote your books locally and say that they can be bought on ebid, providing a link if possible. Also, have you thought about also selling secondhand and out-of-print books on the same subject, they should appeal to the same market.
Hi Sussexbooks.
I have come to the conclusion that to be succesful on ebid, you need to do a lot of self-promotion - not just for yourself, but ebid.net in general.
You will notice I said ebid.NET and not just ebid. Why, I hear you ask?
If you say ebid to people, when they eventually try to track ebid down on the internet, they will likely put ebid.COM into their search engine, which does not bring them to here - instead it takes them to a page where someone is sitting on the domain name.
There are plenty of threads on promoting ebid.net and your presence here.
Off the top of my head I don't have any links, but they are easy to find in the forums.
Your 1st step is to get a signature with a link to your listings.
I know time is precious, but you really do need to find that extra five minutes to do a little bit of self promotion on other websites.
Hope this helps
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Been reading the posts with interest. Only been on Ebid for three days--listing away and also seeing what others are up to. I, too, was wondering about sales. On the other online site I came from I have noticed that my sales went up tremendously when I went into non-fiction and did away with most fiction. I agree the number of books one has DOES help--but I usually kept between 1,500 and 3,000 books up--and noticed my number of monthly feedbacks was actually higher than others with 7000 plus listings--when I switched to specialized non-fiction. I want to get off the other online site--for reasons I think are making worldwide news among disgruntled sellers. But the sales are so good it's hard. I can tell by people's feedback percentages that sales here are rather sporadic. I don't know anything about Ebid except I like the fee structure and user friendliness. I don't know how they market. But the way I look at it--if the other online site persists with its new policies it will make worldwide news. I barely have looked--but already saw feature stories online about several sellers who got out before the changes took effect and how well they are doing on other sites or with their own websites. I am no expert--but I think the next few months will be make it or break it for long-term sales on this site and similar ones. If worldwide blogs and news sources start finding out where people are going with their sales and why--it's free publicity. I can't totally slam the other online site--I can tell they market their buns off because my sales run in strange patterns--for example one week most books will go to Arizona and then Texas--so they have to be hitting specific states at certain times.
Or their totally screwed search is doing strange things depending on where customers live, to your visibility.
It hasn't been worth listing low value books on eB*y for a while now, the postage has to be too high, and gets decimated by PayP*l fees. Amazon is still going steadily, although sales dipped earlier this year and haven't really recovered that well.
Your posts are really interesting, but I am finding them very difficult to read; do you think you could put a few more spaces and paragraphs in please? Thanks.
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