Answered! 3 of your most popular questions…

By Sharon Fussell, November 14, 2012

As you can imagine I get many emails every week asking questions about my experiences with Amazon…

Rather than keep them all to myself I thought it would be helpful to look at some of the most popular questions I’m asked.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing this week!

Without further ado, here goes. Here are 3 of your most popular questions, along with my responses below:

Q) I know you will have built up a lot of experience by now but do you still check every book you buy?

A) Yes and no. If I buy in bulk and the books are reasonably cheap (10p-25p), I just look for condition. I have a reasonable idea which books to avoid, that will not yield profits high enough to bother with. These include writers such as Barbara Bradford Taylor, Helen Fielding, Danielle Steele, Catharine Cookson, Dan Brown.

It’s not to say that those books do not sell-indeed they are prolific sellers – it’s just that the profit margins are low even using FBA, market place profits will be non existent, Demand is too small compared to supply.

For new comers to Sold Dispatch Now Gold (SDNG) I would not recommend bothering with popular fiction titles…

However, if I go into charity shops that are not prepared to negotiate a lower price to purchase in bulk then I will peruse non fiction book section and pick out those books that I feel will be of value on Amazon. Fist I use the isbn to check its value, (using my mobile usually).

I will only then purchase if certain elements are right, these include:

1) Looking at the selling value on Amazon to see if there is a difference between what I pay for an item, and what I can sell it for, allowing for postage costs and Amazon fees of course.

2) The sales ranking, found on the product description page, (the lower the number the more in demand) This is only a snapshot and a guide only.

3) Condition is king, even if other elements are right – if the condition is poor I would not purchase to resell.

Q) What’s your best ever profit on a book?

A) Saleswise to date a book on Gun Dogs which I paid 25p for and received £79.99. But I regularly sell books between £25 and £60 and for a cost of only 10p-30p each, which is obviously a great profit margin. However, this weekend I traded in two books and received £76 from the Amazon trade in centre, which I feel was extremely good return for less than a 50p spend.

Q) What do you think about those sellers (mainly from USA, one in particular from Florida) who sell at hugely inflated prices?

A) When I first joined Amazon it shook me that this practice went on, but there are various reasons for the inflated prices.

One is that they only receive the same postal credit as UK buyers and so try to make up for the actual postage cost.

Secondly they drop ship (this is not supposed to happen) so if someone buys the book – they contact another seller who is selling the book cheaper, buy it from them and get them to send it and make money on the difference between the two prices.

Thirdly they are mad!!! Goodness knows who’s more insane the buyer or the seller!

Right, that’s it for today. I hope you found this little Q and A session useful, sometimes it can be good to hear what questions other people have got on their mind.

Have a great weekend and I’ll be in touch next week!

TESTING TESTING

What do you think?

You must be logged in to post a comment.