I’ve been selling books on Amazon since 2006, and I’ve always ignored sourcing at used books stores. Why? Not only are the books priced high, but also I’ve always assumed that the owner would know the exact online value of his/her inventory. Thus (in my mind) the arbitrage opportunities would be slim.
A few months ago, I started scanning books at a local bookstore. This store specializes in textbooks so I knew there would be some valuable books. But how much would I have to pay? To my surprise, I found a few winners. This got my wheels turning, and I decided to go “all in.” I scanned almost every single book in the academic/textbook section.
Here are the books.
I bought 51 books for $277.55, which comes to an average purchase price of $5.44 a book. Here are some individual winners:
GNRS Geriatric Nursing Review Syllabus: Sold for $103.99
Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures: Sold for $88.57
The Sea Floor: Sold for $66.90
After four months, 40 of the books sold. The gross Amazon sales are $1071.51. Here is the breakdown of the fees/expenses:
Gross Sales $1071.51
Amazon Fees: ($280.43)
Cost of Books: ($277.55)
UPS Shipping: ($15)
Total Profit: $498.53
Not bad considering I was in there for about 3 hours. There are some disadvantages though. I had to scan A LOT of books. I would say that only 5% were any good. I couldn’t imagine doing this with a camera phone and internet connection. I used a database scouting tool with a socket scanner. In addition, I had to pay quite a bit more upfront than I’m used to. A little over $275 is a lot to pay especially since many of the books had a rank above one million. I’m used to paying $1 or less per book at library sales and thrift stores.
It was a good day though. My only wish was that I had given that bookstore a chance much earlier. The irony is that I used to live about a mile way from that store, and I never went in there. It was only until I moved 90 minutes away that I discovered it was a gem.
The exact profits were calculated using SourceProfit.
Nice! $5 is not too much for books overall, some used book stores are more!
Just starting to get comfortable scanning halfprice books.
Went into a used bookstore I have past 100 times without noticing it, it was a hoarders store, books everywhere, in boxes everywhere, shelves a mess, cashier belching, making me wish there was some music in the store, lol. Prices WAY too high also, left without a thing.
Hey Biff,
Thanks for your comment. Half Price books has some gems hidden in there. Bookstores are definitely hit and miss. I’m lucky to have some good ones in my area.
I am in the Dallas area, home of Half Price books so we have many of them around. I have made plenty of money over the years pulling books and cds from their clearance section. Most of the time they are only $1-$3. They also have a great warehouse sale once a year that is a goldmine. Like you said, there are also some gems hidden on the shelves if you know where to look. I have pulled many text books out of there that cost me $5.99-$7.99 and was able to flip for $50+. Half price books do have their own amazon selling account, but I believe these books are pulled before they hit the sales floor. Once they hit the floor they eventually get rotated out to the clearance section to make way for fresh stock. The one disadvantage is that everyone knows about them so the clearance shelves to tend to get scanned on a regular basis, but the clearance tags are dated making it easy to locate the newer additions so you can get in and out fairly quickly, only scanning the newer stuff.
We are so lucky that we have a Half Price Book Outlet 4 miles from our house. Go there every other day.
Hey nathan I remember you had some screenshots of how your repricer was set up. Could you help me set mine up. I use repriceit. Thanks alot
Here’s an example of one:
https://booktothefuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Repriceit-Settings-1.pdf
Hi Nathan i read your step by step interview with cynthia styne and you said that your minimum price was $9.95 for a book to make your $4 profit minimum.I was wondering if you could show that repricing screenshots for that repricing strategy.I have been following your .49 cents rule on the scanner and it has worked out great so far.I spend far too much time preparing books to send out to amazon using scan power i’m trying to incorporate scanlister and reprice it so it makes the process a whole lot faster but have no clue how to reprice.I want to thank you for all your information you have given to book sellers!!! P.S You should write a book on repricing!!!!!
Hi Jason,
It is the exactly same as the screenshot above. Except change the minimum price from $7.95 to $9.95.
Regards,
Nathan
A local used book store offers points for trade ins that can be used for 50% off the price of other used books. Occasionally they will have double points day which means 75% off of the normal price. One those days I take books that aren’t profitable to sell to trade in and stock up on profitable ones. I also found a clearance section at a local off campus university book store that sometimes has very profitable books.
Nice! I also trade in my penny books for trade-in credit. I then use that credit to buy their more valuable books.
Is the scouting tool listed in the article for books only? Thanks.
No, you can scan all media and items from other categories as well.
You seriously shipped all 51 books for $15? Pretty amazing since most textbooks are big and heavy.
I guestimated on that number. I looked it up and it was actually $10. For me, shipping to Amazon costs 20 cents a book. As shown in the picture, most of the books were scholarly paperback books – not necessarily heavy textbooks.
Hi Nathan,
Great article. I was surprised by the ratio of Amazon fees to sales. For me, Amazon FBA fees are more like 40-45% of the total sales. So if I were to sell $1000 of books, the fees would be something like $400-450, not $280. Are there other fees for you, or were these Marketplace sales?
Thanks
The ratio of Amazon fees to sales is lower in this example because I sold a lot of high value books. Therefore, the fixed commissions represent a much smaller percentage. For example, Let’s say I sold a $100 and a $10 book.
If a book sells for $100, here are the fees:
$15 15% Commission
$1.35 Variable Closing Fee
$1.04 Pick and Pack Fee
$0.63 Weight-Based Fee
Total fees: $18
If a book sell for $10, here are the fees:
$1.50 15% Fee
$1.35 Variable closing Fee
$1.04 Pick and Pack Fee
$0.63 Weight-Based Fee
Total fees: $4.52
The ratio of fees to sales for the $100 book is only 18%. The ratio of fees to sales for the $10 book is 45%.
Nathan,
I believe that in one of Peter Valley’s books he says that he does not source at used book stores as he feels uncomfortable in sourcing in front of the employees/owner because they will know that he is a seller and can do the same thing he is doing on Amazon.
I believe Peter said he does source at bookstores, but he is more discreet about his scanner.
Be careful about scanning in front of management when in mom and pop bookstores. I found a good store recently with fair trade in values. Made the mistake of scanning in front of the owner who kicked me out. Bookstore and record store management are typically very eccentric and sensitive about the integrity of their business being corrupted by resellers.
True. There is a bookstore in my area that has a lot of valuable textbooks. They told me on two separate occasions that they do not allow scanning. I have finally honored their request, and I don’t go in there anymore.
Nathan,
Looks like Amazon has changed their website, will this affect future used book sales?
Thank You,
Thayer
Minor changes by Amazon will not affect book sales in my opinion.
I have found the two used bookstores where i am are quite good for harder to find out of print books. Both know i am an online bookseller and do not care in the least about it.
Fact is simple = if the bookstore gets what they ask in $; then what you sell it for when you leave is your business only, not theirs. Never begrudge another profit. If it is worth more then they should have done the research themselves and sold it for that. And considering they are selling it for more than they paid?