When people ask me if they think selling used books is a good business I have to say for someone wishing to just get started selling books I would say no.
Why do I say no and by what authority do I day this? When it comes to selling used book I speak with a great deal of experience. I have had an on-line book selling business for about 8 years now. People always ask me if it is a good way to make money. I have to be honest and say it is not as good as it used to be and if you are not willing to put your whole heart and effort in to it you will not be able to make it.
I am not referring to the average person who wants to sell some of their old books that they don’t want any more for a little cash. I whole heatedly encourage people to do that. I am talking about selling used books as a living, as a business. A business where you actually acquire books just to sell.
Once upon a time selling used books was very profitable and a great way to make money. It used to be you could make a good return on books at least better than you would get selling them at a garage sale. But competition is very thick on online used book selling site these days, and many of the competitors low ball the prices of the books. In other words there are so many people doing it these days that the prices have become so competitive you will hardly make any money on the books you sell any more, and unless you have enough books in your inventory to make money on quantity sales it is not going to be worth it for you to make it a business.
Not only are you not getting a lot for books over a few months old you will also have to pay fees and commissions to the sites you are selling them on.
Depending on how much you list the book for and your competition will likely decide how much you list it for, you could end up making very little. You can get a discount on fees if you are a volume sellers. For people like me who have a large inventory there is an option of paying $39.99 fee per month. On top of this I pay a 15% commission. But by paying the $39.99 set monthly fee I don’t have to pay an additional fee per book. The additional fee per book is .99. I still have to pay the 15% however. So if you think about this if I only sell 40 books per month I am paying .99 for each book that sells, plus 15%. The fee for people who do not pay the $39.99 a month it will cost me that additional .99 per book. As you can see .99 per book plus a commission fee would mean you make very little on each book. But if you pay the subscription fee of $39.99 you will end up paying less of a fee per book for every book you sell over 40 books. So if you sell 80 books per month you will only be paying .50 per book, and so on.
Starting a used book selling business where books were to be sold on line would be a difficult business for someone to get in to. You would have to go out and acquire inventory, and this will cost a good amount of money up front, and then you might end up making very little money on the books. Unless you purchase a scanner which will cost you from $500 + unless you are lucky enough to find a used one cheaper you will not know if the books you are acquiring have any re-sale value or not. Keep in mind that you will also need to pay monthly service fees for your scanner, so you have to determine if it is worth it or not to you. Also many large book sales do not want people with scanners using the scanners at the sales because they pretty much behave rudely pushing their scanners in front of the other people’s faces, and taking up space where there space is tight to sit and scan all the books they have chosen.
I will continue with my business because I have a huge inventory I have already bought the books so I will continue to sell them, but my business has dropped to about half of what I used to sell. This is likely due to the economy, as my reputation is one of the strongest on line, but I also have to keep in mind the devices such as the Kindell will also diminish people’s desire to buy used books. This is not a huge problem at the moment but this problem will increase for book sellers like me especially as the Kindell’s prices get lower over time.
Shipping prices have also increased a lot over the past couple of years. When I first started selling books media mail shipments were $1.42 for under 13 Oz. Media mail is now $2.38 for under 13 oz. This is a large amount of money per book and it adds up quite a bit each month. Amazon does reimburse for shipping, but they did not raise the shipping reimbursement for sellers during the last 2 postal increases. The shipping reimbursement just barely covers the shipping and the supplies to ship the books. It used to be you got a little extra that you could consider handling, but we pretty much no longer get anything for our handling.
If something gets lost by the post office, damaged in the mail or a customer has a problem with their order you are at a complete loss there. You will usually end up losing money because you have already mailed the book, but you will still either need to get the customer another copy, or refund their money, and since you already paid for the shipping too, you are really in a lose, lose situation. Thankfully this does not happen a lot but it does happen at least once every other month, and I can pretty much guarantee it during the holiday season, I average about 3 book losses or damages per year between the months of November and January.
So in conclusion while it was once a good viable resale business it really no longer is. For those of us who have been doing it a long time we can continue to do it because we have existing inventory, but I would not recommend it as a start up business for new sellers to get in to. Competition, shipping costs, and technology have caught up to us used book sellers, and it is now a difficult business to make good money at.
However for the consumer looking to by used books you can usually acquire fantastic books for a steal.
