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.

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
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