Selling books online can be very profitable. When individual sales are quickly glanced at the potential for profits can seem great.  I have bought many books for $1 and sold it for $30 or more many times – very fat profit margins.  The thing of it is that becasue I do everything online I can lose track of my margins.  Managing your bookselling venture like a small business is important. 

I sell my books online and do almost all of the back office business online.  This creates a very simple business to run but because so much of the processes are done online.  My books and envelopes are the only real things I store.  I manage my overall business on a cash basis but keeping track of the details is important.  Here are things that are easy to lose track of in terms of really figuring out what your margins are:

  • Marketplace monthly fees – Amazon is straightforward but eBay is variable
  • Commissions taken per book by the marketplaces
  • Postage – Amazon takes another chunk here
  • Cost per envelope
  • Monthly fees of Endicia
  • Monthly fees of Inventory Management System – in my case The Art of Books
  • Cost of books

The list can go on and it becomes depressing how much others make when I sell one book – everyone gets their cut.  So when I sell a book for $10 that I bought for $1 I am not making $9 (or even $8).  This is one reason it is some important to figure out your margins as you can figure out what books are not worth selling.

Keep track of everything, work the numbers and focus on the bottom line and you should see your profits increase.  Regulary shop around for new vendors.  Is your inventory management provider the best for the money.  How about your envelope provider? Ink toner?  All of these eat into profits.  Spend time shopping and save.

Textbook Season Ending & Return Season Starting
There is almost never a case when I do not accept returns - most markets require you to accept them (see Amazon's A-Z policy). I keep my return policy simple. The only time I have not accepted a return is when a significant amount of time has passed between the purchase date and the return date or if the books condition is materially different from when I sold it (such as full of highlighting). Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the customer experience when I run a business from home and do not interact with the customers. Continue reading
Amazon Charge When Shipped (Amazon CWS)
What does CWS mean for us booksellers? Not much. You will not have your account credited until you ship a book. If you use The Art of Books or a similar inventory management system Amazon should be automatically updated when the book is shipped. There are a couple of downsides to Amazon's Charge When Shipped - you do not get to send your own confirmation email to the buyer and the buyer can still leave feedback on a canceled order. Continue reading
Is the Amazon Kindle bad for Online Booksellers
Sales of the Kindle are one thing but it remains to be seen if people are actually going to adapt to using it as their primary way to read - as we have seen with Amazon recenlty deleting Orwell titles there are several issues with the Kindle that will effect its popularity. Continue reading
Tags:book inventory management systems,Booksales and the economy,bookselling,fillz,guide to selling books online,make money selling books,online booksales and the economy,online bookselling,selling books on amazon

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