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I got involved selling books on Amazon and Ebay when my family had five of us in college at the same time and we were spending a fortune on books. I started doing all the buying and selling online, or at least comparing online prices to the college bookstore prices. I picked up some additional books that college professors were giving away and from a local book sale. I've been buying and selling books and audio books for over 10 years now.
My experience is that it is difficult to compete with professional in this business. I found there wasn't enough traffic on Ebay for books. Amazon has plenty of traffic but their commission is very high. Some people won't bother selling a book for under $10. Others can sell a book for $0.01 and make money. They make money from Amazon's $3.99 shipping fee. High volume sellers get discount commission from both Amazon and discounted shipping from the USPS. They use cheap packing materials so their shipping costs are extremely low. This way they can make $1.50 to $2.00 selling a $0.01 book.
I also ran into professional at my local church book sale. The pros are waiting in line when the book sale starts with bar code scanners on their wrists. They go through piles of books in minutes scanning for ones with market value.
What I found was most books have very little resale value other than college and K-12 textbooks. A bestseller book has a window of opportunity before the market is flooded with used (and new) copies for sale. I wish someone luck who is looking for a market niche where you can make money selling online.
Can someone who has done this or know more about it tell me if this could still be done? Such as how much money one could make if doing it part time vs full time?
Anyone here know whats a good forum or article to get tips on learning to do something like this? If someone sends a lot of time doing it, could they make like 500-1000 a month doing this? Obviously that isn't that much but if you have free time, that would seem a bit interesting.
Also do most people lose lot of money doing this though because they buy products and then can't sell them? Obviously you are not going to buy a ton of things when you first start out. But are there any articles or people you could read about that have tips on this?
There should be information on ebay and Amazon's sites on how to sell. There used to be a seller's forum on ebay, not sure if it's still there.
Just to get the hang of it, sell things you already have. Learn how to write good ads, price things right and ship efficiently. Build up your feedback score. Keep learning as you go.
The thing is i don't really have anything to sell. Anything i have isn't any value at all. I mean i do have some old ram in my laptops that do not work. But these would be like selling old things etc.
I'm talking about like buying things on amazon or walmart and then reselling them for higher value on ebay. But is doing this even profitable? Like if someone does this full time, could they make say 2-3k a month doing it? But if someone does this say 10 hours a week, they probably could make a few hundred a month? However, is it possible to lose a lot doing this? Like imagine you go and buy $200 worth of things at a discount. What would be a good price to sell that $200 worth of things? Because i seen videos where ppl go to walmart and buy items and even go to places and look at shoes for discounts, then use an app on phone to scan it to see the price and then decide on buying it or not.
You are about three years too late to make much much reselling retail items on Amazon or eBay. There was a window where you could buy stuff at deep discount from local retailers and sell just under national retail online and make some money. But now there are about eleven zillion people trying this secret get-rich trick, and it doesn't work very well any more.
$2-3k? Figure a net margin of a whopping 10%, and you'd have to move $25k in merchandise a month.
The thing is i don't really have anything to sell. Anything i have isn't any value at all. I mean i do have some old ram in my laptops that do not work. But these would be like selling old things etc.
I'm talking about like buying things on amazon or walmart and then reselling them for higher value on ebay. But is doing this even profitable? Like if someone does this full time, could they make say 2-3k a month doing it? But if someone does this say 10 hours a week, they probably could make a few hundred a month? However, is it possible to lose a lot doing this? Like imagine you go and buy $200 worth of things at a discount. What would be a good price to sell that $200 worth of things? Because i seen videos where ppl go to walmart and buy items and even go to places and look at shoes for discounts, then use an app on phone to scan it to see the price and then decide on buying it or not.
I got involved selling books on Amazon and Ebay when my family had five of us in college at the same time and we were spending a fortune on books. I started doing all the buying and selling online, or at least comparing online prices to the college bookstore prices. I picked up some additional books that college professors were giving away and from a local book sale. I've been buying and selling books and audio books for over 10 years now.
My experience is that it is difficult to compete with professional in this business. I found there wasn't enough traffic on Ebay for books. Amazon has plenty of traffic but their commission is very high. Some people won't bother selling a book for under $10. Others can sell a book for $0.01 and make money. They make money from Amazon's $3.99 shipping fee. High volume sellers get discount commission from both Amazon and discounted shipping from the USPS. They use cheap packing materials so their shipping costs are extremely low. This way they can make $1.50 to $2.00 selling a $0.01 book.
I also ran into professional at my local church book sale. The pros are waiting in line when the book sale starts with bar code scanners on their wrists. They go through piles of books in minutes scanning for ones with market value.
I started out on Amazon selling books. I bought 80 books at a garage sale for $20, then bought hundreds of Mormon books at another garage sale. The first lot didn't pay so well but the second lot did.
But you're right: You really can't compete with the book scouts. They know how to get away with hoarding books at each sale and they always seemed to get there much earlier than I could. I don't even try to sell my own books on AMZ any more. I give them away or leave them at hotels for other people to read.
I used to buy broken iPods, repair and refurbish them, then sell them on eBay. I was bored and unemployed at the time. I was more interested in having something to do, any profit was incidental.
I still have stock I'm thinking of trying to sell. If it's too big a hassle I'll just give them to friends. I specialized in iPod minis, still smaller than cells, and cells are getting bigger every generation. Heh, now they have "phablets!"
I'll let you know if I resume, and my experiences.
One thing, they do have Nazi policies. Don't link your account to a bank with any serious money. I have a "piggy bank" account that never has more than a small amount of cash. My serious money is at a separate bank (credit union).
It's the 2000-teens variation of being a small wholesale jobber. And it has all the long hours, low returns, intensive effort and risk it's always had.
Some sellers post items they think would sell quick because the price is attractive or item is trendy and wait for orders. When an interested buyer order that item, they will order it from their source. Thus why
buyer's had to sometimes wait for the delivery. Items from Europe or China can take few weeks to be delivered.
No footwork is required for such resale, just browsing the Internet and finding interesting stuff.
It could be easy money, as you don't own the inventory.
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