Last November, I hired somebody to go to thrift stores and buy books for me. To date, he as now brought me over 7000 books. Here are some of the financial results.
1. What is a book-sourcer?
2. Profits, ROI, percentage of books sold
3. Pros and cons of hiring somebody to source
4. How to track results
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Free guide to hiring a book-sourcer: https://booktothefuture.com/booksourcerguide
Tracking spreadsheet: https://booktothefuture.com/tracking
Nathan, Today’s video was so helpful to me — as I am about to purchase ScanLister, send in to FBA my first 600 books and begin recruiting my first sourcer. Bryan’s video from yesterday (7/18) made me look at Wisconsin’s law (my home state) on the requirements for classifying someone as an Independent Contractor vs an “employee” and the distinction has me a bit worried. Because FL law is pretty similar to WI (based on federal standards) I was wondering what your thoughts are on this … RE: http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/taxes/rt_employee.html
I’d love to chat by phone if you can find a minute or two for me.
I’m considering deducting $20 out of each paycheck and have that go towards the cost of the scanner. That way he will own the equipment and be considered an independent contractor. Then give him the option of selling it back to me if he decides to move on. He pays for the books out of pocket, which is more of an independent contractor.
So Nathan –
You provide your sourcer with the Samsung phone, loaded with FBAScan…
How do you manage the potential liability and or factor the cost of cell plan and / or FBAScan… Is your scanner using local database or cellular service?
Thanks.
Yes, I supplied him with a phone and scanner and pay the $30/month. The database is local.
Nathan,
Very helpful video and guide. Can you explain if having landed price checked or unchecked makes a difference in your scenio?
Nathan,
p.s. with your settings what percentage of sourcer books have unacceptably high amount of competing FBA offers?
Not really sure. But since I’m only buying books with a MF price of $2.50 or more, there is less of a chance of having FBA competition.
Yes, it would make a difference. I don’t have the landed prices checked in the e-guide.
Thanks for the great information. I’ve adjusted my triggers to your suggestions, and I’m amazed at what a difference that’s made in my sourcing. I have a nagging question for you: what do you do when a book does NOT have a barcode? Do you skip the book? Do you type in the ISBN? Or, do you have another way of handling them?
I manually type in the ISBN number into FBAscan.
Thanks for the update, keep up the good work!
Glad you enjoyed the update!
Question: By only paying your sourcer $2 per book, they are automatically going to walk past any book that costs more than $2 since there is no gain for him. So isn’t he potentially passing up many opportunities for a good ROI? What do you think of paying a dollar over the price of the book – as long as the scanner says “buy”? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Yes, but I want to keep it simple. I don’t want to track the price of each book and have to reimburse him. Plus, since he’s paying out of pocket, he’s more of a independent contractor.
Are you not just training your competition? Also, how do you prevent someone from keeping valuable books for themselves?
Good questions. There is probably a little risk involved, but here’s why I’m not worried.
1. Most people are not entrepreneurial. Most people would prefer a paycheck.
2. He gets paid immediately. I have to wait 6 months to make a decent profit.
3. He does not see the prices on the scanner. He only sees “buy or reject”. So he doesn’t know how much the books are worth.
4. There is a learning curve with selling on Amazon FBA.
Nathan,
Awesome video with great information. Very helpful for my own business model.
I always track the metrics you show in your video but also calculate my earnings per hour. Do you have any idea what you are making using this system?
I assume you would divide 2154 (profit) by the number of hours you spent processing 1047 books. I would be interested in hearing how this worked out for you compared to sourcing the books yourself.
Good question. I haven’t timed my listing speed in a while. I also have someone helping me list books as well which speeds things up tremendously.
This is a very interesting blog. I am trying to pin down exactly what books I would send to FBA and I am struggling with this. If a book has a low MF offer and has 200 other sellers then why would I also sell it? If anyone can help me understand how you decide what books to send FBA I would really appreciate it. I have tons of books to sort through and need a clear vision for how to decide what is a good FBA book. Thanks
Interesting facts proposal. Got a question on your previous post of listing so quickly with scanlister. At what point do you figure out and put your price to sell at? Every one in your example was at $100 and that confused me.
I am new at selling books on FBA, do i HAVE to shrink wrap the books I am selling via FBA? Which books if any should I shrink wrap??? I have been shrink wrapping every book I’ve sent to FBA. But alot of the videos I’ve seen they don’t shrink wrap at all? What are your thoughts? Thanks
You do not need to shrinkwrap your books.