Fighting Off The Masses At Book Sales
When I first began selling books on eBay in 1996, I could visit a library book sale on bag day and be one of the few people there. Now, to be honest, I find it difficult to go to some hectic book sales on any day. Since moving to Washington, DC this has gotten even worse. I saw this trend coming nearly five years ago. This is when I began digging for alternative strategies for replacing my sold inventory and/or growing. This took a great deal of time and a ton of dead-ends, but it paid off immensely.
The important piece for you, as an online bookseller, is begin thinking entrepreneurially about ways in which you can diversify your sources of inventory. I am not going to provide a laundry list here of ways you can do that, because some of my ideas are, of course, proprietary and others will not apply to many of you. Nevertheless, one way, which I’ve discussed before, is attacking the ignored tables at a book sale. The most profitable for us has been the foreign language books. Often ignored because they sell less frequently and are harder to list, these tables can turn an empty book sale visit into a profitable one for many sellers - all without the pushing and skimming of the other tables. I still recommend this for sellers who are on both Abe and ChooseBooks.
The key to any strategy in this business is understanding your costs. I wrote an article a while back about knowing your economics of one unit and I reiterate the importance of this. If you’re a decent size seller, you should be able to work on standard gross profit margins of 100%. Meaning, if you buy a book for $1 and sell it for $2.00 (after commission). Understandably, for smaller sellers, you’d be ok with this margin, but only at a higher price point.
In any event, begin searching for opportunities, teach brain to begin recognizing opportunities at every turn. I promise you that they still exist. Hell, they’re even trashing 500,000 books at a time in some places. Avoid the hectic book sales, pay for the preview, and head to Book Sale Scout to comment on them to share your feelings.
