Forum Topic

Amazon - used books

If you go to Amazon books they have something called Marketplace where you can sell your old books.  Now that sounds fine but the problem is, there are bookshops there, selling brand new books for 01p plus £2.75 postage and package; the book I have in mind coincidentally, is called 'The Witches of Chiswick'!  By my calculation £2.75 will not cover the cost of the Amazon fees plus postage so how can they sell a new book for 01p?  Well it's left me scratching my head as to where the profit motive might be.  It's not a frivolous question as I have about 200 used paperbacks I would like to sell and this could have been a good way of getting rid of them.  Apart from the obvious car boot sale, can anybody suggest an alternative means of selling these books?

Peter Wright ● 6186d3 Comments

Many thanks Dave for your useful link have put a couple of books on already and will see how it goes.May well contact you later about you buying some books from me.

Peter Wright ● 6183d

I may be intrested in Buying them from you....I know what you mean about amazon its killing the secondhand book trade..many a time I know for a fact that you can not sell some books at that price and post them and make any money, I run my own book web site www.mohicanbooks.co.uk I use amazon but also sell on 5 other sites as well as my own but all this costs so I ahve to sell so many to break even a month..Tip try Play.com you can sell with out fees kicking in if you have only about 200 books after that fees kick in, but you have to price the book to included delivery and as well you have to consider the price for european buyers in that.second is to consider your packing as this will effect your pricing.Hope thats helpfull..you can make money but the amount of books needed and  storage is beyound most people..

Dave Hughes ● 6184d

If they are specialist or rare books there are booksellers who will buy them but, generally, secondhand paperbacks have no value and are best given to charity shops.JL

Jim Linwood ● 6186d