Is there an app on the iPhone that can take the place of your pda book scanner and book scouting software? Almost but not quite yet though it is clear the capability is there. So do not cancel your book scouting subscription and throw away your PDA yet. Hopefully the day will come soon when you can.

There are several apps for the iPhone that try to replicate a scanner by taking a photo or video of a barcode and transmit back price info. These scanning apps will often have trouble reading a barcode and the info they give back isn’t all the info booksellers need. Amazon has their own app that when you take a photo of an item it emails you back the info – this is a bit slow if you are at a library sale but okay if you are just out at one of your book buying haunts. SnapTell is another app that is pretty good and like the Amazon app it is free.

If you have an iPhone it is clear the capability is there to provide an application that will be able to integrate with the Amazon database and provide Amazon sales rank info, book conditions and price info. At the very least the app would enable you to download the database and be able to get the info you want from it the catch is going to be getting the isbn’s entered into the iPhone quickly.

The camera on the new iPhone has been improved and hopefully we are close to seeing the potential uses for booksellers come to fruition.

I recently wrote about some of the tools Ebay provides to sellers and one of their best is the ability to allow buyers to put out “Best Offers” on items. I wanted to highlight this feature and how it comes into play using Amazon Sales Rank.

Yesterday I sold two items using Ebay’s Best Offer. Both were sold for less than the current lowest price the item was listed for on Amazon but based on each items sales rank I accepted. Here are both items:

• Photoshop CS3 Sharpening Images (CD Rom) – listed for $89 with a Amazon Sales Rank of #1,643,176.  The CD was listed for sale on 12/18/08. I accepted a Best Offer on Ebay of $50.  My cost was $4 to buy the CD.
• UVB Instrumentation and Applications-  listed for $68 with a Amazon Sales Rank of #3,783,937 .   The book was listed for sale on by me on 10/13/08.  I accepted a Best Offer on Ebay of $50.  My cost was $3 to buy the book.

Did I leave some money on the table?  Possibly – especially with the Photoshop CD but look at those sales ranks.  When would be the next time I even get interest in them?  The UVB book could sit in inventory for a couple of years before it sells.  Remember over time the price of your books will likely drop in terms of other sellers under-pricing you which is to say that you may not ever get your asking price anyway.

This is why I always use Best Offer because of the flexibility it gives me.  I do not have to accept the first offer.  Many buyers likely expect you to counter with a higher offer so it makes sense to do so.  For the two books above I saw a quick $100 in sales with some monster profits on slow selling inventory so I just accepted the offers.

What would you have done?  Let me knw

Selling Books on Ebay is a little different than selling books on Amazon.  One of the great things about selling books on Ebay is the flexibility you have over promoting your listings.  I have an Ebay Seller Store (not a ProStore) and here are some of the tools I use to maximize it:

• Flexible Shipping Costs – for my expensive books I provide Free Shipping.  This might catch a buyers eye and help with the seller scores Ebay has plus it does not really eat into profits.
• Sales Tool – I use the markdown manager to offer discounts on certain books (up to 250 at one time).  Again the listing reflects that the book is “on sale” and might help get the potential buyer to actually buy.
• International Shipping – is much easier on Ebay then the other marketplaces since you can charge the actual shipping cost and not just a flat fee like Amazon.  I allow for international shipping for most of my books on Ebay.
• Photos – Many of my older books do not have stock photos.  I can’t say a photograph them all and upload them to my listings but I do provide photos on request.  You can also state in your listing that you will provide them
• Best Offer – This feature is the best.  Everyone loves getting a great deal and Best Offer allows them to.  Best Offer helps sell some of my more expensive inventory or some of my more esoteric academic/religious texts.  I find students always use Best Offer.  This provides me flexibility to either wait for the full asking price or if I want to sell for the lower offer if I want the cash flow.  There is no cost to offering Best Offer.

The only major concern I have with Ebay is the monthly costs which can add up with the per book fee.  I do not list my full inventory on Ebay because of this and I still find how they charge sellers to be difficult to follow. 

Also – the inability to leave neutral or negative feeback to a buyer makes no sense.  I have never left either for a buyer but it was nice to know I could if a buyer was being completely unreasonable.

Though this time of year is great for building your inventory it sure is lousy for selling it.  The average number of books I am selling is on the decline as it always is after Memorial Day.  Thankfully some big ticket items are selling (just sold a $1,000 partial set of the Encyclopedia Judaica).  The New York Times reported in today’s business section that book sales are down across the industry.  Publishers and retailers all report fewer sales.  Now this time of year is always slow for your typical online bookseller since we generally do not sell the hot beach reads.  Couple that with an industry is off then what is one to do.

• Hopefully all you booksellers plan ahead for slower summer sales and take some of the higher earning from December-February and allocate it for these months so you can keep up with buying inventory.  Both Microsoft and Quicken offer free accounting software that you can use to help with planning ahead and managing your financials. Quicken’s software is the standard that most people use but both are fine.
• Cull your inventory – going through it and de-listing the stuff that has dropped too low in price.
• Re-price more often and more aggressively if cash flow is an issue. 
• Re-visit your expenses – check all your subscriptions and services – shop around some of their competitors may offer the same services for less.  Look around for deals on shipping supplies etc.
• Branch out – if you are doing this from home – there are a myriad of ways to make money online – start doing some research but do not dive in head first in something new.  I wrote an guide about selling books online to help add some monthly revenue (you can sign up for a coupon for it in the upper right of this blog).  In a future post (coming soon) I will talk about some other ideas for branching out.

I am always looking for ways to grow my business without changing my business model (working from home).  My book business is steady and my inventory is at a manageable level.  So, a while back, I decided to see what other was I could grow and tried out dropshipping. 

Dropshipping is basically where you sell other peoples inventory.  Here is how it works – a dropship supplier may have 100 copies of a book which they have listed for sale at $10.  The book would typically sell for $14 on eBay.  You list it and sell it on eBay for $14 plus shipping. You then give the dropshipper $10 plus shipping (and the shipping info) and they ship it to the buyer. 

I have used dropshippers to sell new computer and console games (not books) at my eBay store – thus using my existing store to sell more products.  I sold a bunch but did not think it was worth the profit.  The above example where you make a potential profit of $4 does not factor in fees and making sure the shipping collected is correct.  There is also the extra step of contacting the dropshipper and then hoping they ship it out on time. 

Relying on the dropshipper for the shipping was the biggest drawback for me as it took the customer service out of my control.  I had one person who received a game that was not correct (it was the right game but not the right version).  Nothing negative came of it but I do not like having my feedback score exposed to the service of another business.

It is not hard to tell that I am not a strong proponent to using dropshippers as a secondary business.  I know there are people out there who do very well using them and if you do your product research you can find some great deals.  If you do consider using dropshippers I would consider going through a company like Worldwide Brands or SaleHoo.  Both of these companies do the heavy lifting of finding legitimate wholesalers and dropshippers saving you a lot of time and headache as there appear to be a lot of iffy wholesalers out there.  Whatever you do – do not buy a wholesale list or something like it on eBay.