The holiday season through the end of January is the busiest time of year for most booksellers.  I would say late August/early September is the second busiest (beginning of school year).  Last year my book sales spiked in December and were even higher in January.  Like many retailers, whether online or brick & mortar, we depend on this time of year.

The holidays are the biggest factor for the sales spike in December but what about the increase in book sales in January?  I think there are several factors to help explain January sales:

1.  Another school semester generally starts in January so all the students are buying their books online

2.  Customer Returns – many people are returning items to Amazon and using the credit to buy books

3.  Gift Cards/Cash Gifts – People receive these for Christmas and redeem them in January.

Hopefully the economy does not lessen the impact of items #2 & #3.

I would suggest that you still have time to increase your inventory to take advantage of this online buying season.  I have approximately 600 books coming from one of my sources next week to be ready for the season.  Library sales this time of year are few and far between so if they are your primary inventory source you will need to look elsewhere.  You will also need all the shipping supplies to meet the new demand.  Last year I was filling anywhere from 35 to 55 orders a day during these two months.

If you need help with finding alternative book sources for the holiday season I recommend several in my bookselling guide which can be purchased here www.booksellingguide.com.

No matter what  – prepare now for the online bookselling high season so you can actually enjoy them rather than running around looking for inventory.

I think ebay is a great market to sell books on once you get over a few hurdles.  The biggest hurdle is getting your books listed on there.  Thankfully,  some inventory management systems have taken away the difficulty of getting your books listed.  The easiest way to sell your books on Ebay is to have your own pro-store there – of course this comes with a montlhy fee. 

Here are the benefits of selling books on Ebay and a quick comparison to sellin books on Amazon.

1.  A large worldwide market.  Once buyers go to Ebay to look for an item they often stay there – they do not navigate out to another site to purchase.  Amazon is similar but I think Ebay keeps people on their site longer.

2.  You can promote higher priced books to show up on the top of searches.  Plus your DSR scores can help your books show up in searches.  Witht the DSR rating system Ebay can actually reward sellers that provide a qulaity experience to buyers.   This is unlike Amazon where books are shown in price order – which drive people to lower their prices in order to show up.  Amazon’s feedback system doesn’t really benefit good sellers very much.

3.  Ebay lets you keep all the shipping fees.  Amazon keeps a significant piece of the shipping costs foro themselves.

4.  Best Offer – this feature is great.  I have “Best Offer” on every book priced over $40.  I get offers all the time and depending on where my cash flow is for the week I accept, counter or decline. 

5.  Prostores – within your store you can further cross-promote your books, have sales and provide info about who you are which can help personalize sales even more.  The Ebay buyer is much more communicative then a buyer on Amazon.

 I will post later about some of the inventory management service that expedite the listing of books on Ebay.  Amazon is still the largest market for selling books online but Ebay is one that should not be ignored.

There is a case to be made for selling your books on Amazon only.  The argument is not perfect but it merits some consideration given the volume of sales and fee structure on Amazon versus other marketplaces.  Amazon account for approximately 55% to 70% of my monthly sales with a fee structure that is pretty straight-forward (though not great).  Ebay and Alibris account for anywhere from 20% to 35% of my monthly sales with Biblio getting around 1%-2%.

I sell books only on a four markets.  When I first started selling books online I only sold on Amazon and it was the perfect way to start.  More marketplaces meant more fees, more time and (for me) more confusion.  I eventually expanded to six markets and acutally found my profit margins declining.

Selling books on Ebay is the wildcard in this.  Their fee structure is almost incomprehensible once you include Paypal fees, powerseller discounts, shipping caps, listing fees and more.  It can be hard to track your profitability on Ebay.

Abebooks is not a great market even if you have decent sales volume as their fees can be almost 50% of your gross (at least in my experience).  This is far too high for a market that pales in traffic relative to Amazon and eBay.  All the other markets out there do not seem worthwhile for general booksellers.  If you specialize in 1st editions or antiquarian books or some ther specialty book then other markets make sense.

So why sell your books only on Amazon or at least only a few markets?  Savings – you will potentially offset some of the income loss on savings if you are using subscription based tools to help you manage multiple marketplaces.  Amazon gives you quick access to your funds with the ability to transfer your money daily.

If you are new to selling books online I highly encourage you to start on Amazon only.  If you are more experienced it makes sense to branch out but do the math on the profit margins.  I thought grossing more was great until I realized that a lot of the gross was going to the marketplaces.

Again,  not the most convincing argument to sell on Amazon but I think there is a great case to minimize the amount of markets you sell your books on.

Selling books online can be a rewarding business.  There are a few major pitfalls in starting a business selling books online.  I wanted to share some that I have made in order to help out others and I would love to hear from others about some of the mistakes you have made.

The below is an edited excerpt from my eGuide called “An Insider’s Guide to Selling Books Online” which is available here www.booksellingguide.com.

·    Too vague in my book descriptions – call a tear on the dust jacket a “tear” and not something else such as “light wear”.

·    Not being careful enough in examining books for underlining/highlighting then listing and selling them as having “clean text”.

·    Attach the mailing label to the wrong package – make sure what you print comes out in the right order.

·    Losing inventory – I have sold a few books then torn up my office looking for it because god knows where it is.  I end up with a refund and a lost book

·    Entering an ISBN and for some reason it is recognized as a title different than the book I have.  ISBNs are sometimes misprinted on the back of a book or on the copyright page.  The mistake here is I don’t catch the mix-up until after I have listed the wrong title and sold it.

·    Listing a really heavy book and accidentally allowing expedited shipping or international shipping.  You can lose a lot of money shipping really heavy books this way.  I once had to spend $34 to send a book to Australia of which Amazon only gave me $5.64.

·    Not updating the price info on my scanner.  I try to do this every week but sometimes I forget and I scan books that seem like winners only to list them and find out their prices have dropped.  Prices can drop quickly on books that have great sales ranks.

·   Taking feedback to personally.  If a customer is not happy with the book it is their privilege to comment.  Do not respond to negative feedback when you first read it and are upset.  Contact the buyer and try to work it out but be professional.  Do not post a response until you contact the buyer directly.  Empathize, apologize and offer a refund if you feel their complaint is legitimate.  I try to recognize that they are upset and then gently prod them that it is more productive for them to contact you directly rather than post negative feedback.  Request that they remove their feedback (which can be done on Amazon) and when they do provide them their refund.  These situations can be uncomfortable so be calm and do not make it personal.

·    Not re-pricing my books.  Many of my books are high value and high sales rank which means they do not sell frequently but there is a lot of profit.  I do not ever get wed to the idea of how much my inventory should sell for.  This is a market and prices fluctuate.  If the book does not sell because all the competition has lowered their prices to make mine the most expensive then I need to re-visit my price.  Never price my books to be the lowest – I will match the lowest price at times but never set the lowest price.

·    Using cheap, unpadded mailers – I had a stack of cheap unpadded mailers that my wife had left-over from something she did.  I thought I could use them for my smaller paperbacks and save money (and make some more profit on the shipping).  I had to refund two buyers because the books got damaged in the mail.  Don’t get so driven to make a profit that you skimp where you should not. 

Do not let your mistakes stop you from enjoying this business.  Learn from them and get back online and sell more books. 

Will a recession hurt online booksellers?  Two interesting news bits in the business section of today’s New York Times.  The first is titled “Internet Sales in a Slump, Too” and stated online spending growth grew by 6% in the 3^rd quarter of 2008 down from 13% from the same time last year.  Good that it is still growing but sales are slowing. 

The second bit of news was a chart showing the share of visitors for retail web sites and the growth in those visitors (not in sales).  Amazon was shown as having 10.8% share of visitors to retail websites up 6%.  The increased traffic can only be good for online booksellers.

My impression of the economy and how it relates to online bookselling is that it will have a neutral to slightly positive effect. 

The used book market on Amazon offers tremendous value to book buyers.  Cost conscious buyers can get great deals on books.  The increased traffic to Amazon can only help.  I have seen traffic statistics for eBay but I would guess that they may have an increase in traffic given that the items there are perceived to be a value.

Personally, my sales volume is up over last year but it is hard to compare because I recently added a lot of quality inventory that has sold well.  My average sales price is also up this month (to about $14.25 per sale).  My international orders are doing well and I am seeing good sales from all the marketplaces I sell on (Amazon, eBay, Alibris and Biblio).

Hopefully the upcoming holiday season will be robust for online booksellers.