My niche for resale items: college textbooks

I’ve bought them for as little as 50¢, with a resale value of over $75. Last summer one seller gave me a whole box of them. It was the end of the day and she didn’t want to deal with them. I sold them individually for well over $125.

I sell textbooks both on Amazon and Ebay. And I almost never buy a dud! My secret weapon: my iPhone and a little piece of software called SnapTell. SnapTell is now available as an Android application, so you can use it on a variety of smart phones.

This little iApp is awesome! Even better… it’s FREE!

You just snap a picture of the front of a book, dvd, cd, or video game and within seconds you get tons of details — the most important for purposes of resale — the price it sells for used.

To get the “used” price choose Amazon, then scroll to the bottom and you’ll see the price range for Marketplace Offers.

That tells you approximately what the book will sell for. It helps, for textbooks, to also look at the date of publication. More than a few years old and you may have to sell it internationally to get any takers.

Plus, you’ll want to consider the size and weight of the book. Really heavy books (like an art history book I bought), may cost only a couple of bucks and sell for $12, but Amazon has strict rules on what you can charge for shipping, and any extra charges are at the seller’s expense. (Priority Mail, for instance – Amazon maxes the charges out at $6.99, for a heavy book you’ll be paying the USPS at least $9.80.) The other option for the heavy books is to sell them on ebay; no standard shipping price.

Selling books on Amazon and Ebay is super simple. For the most part, all you have to do is enter the ISBN number and all the data is provided. Then, just customize your listing with details about the condition of your item and you’re good to go.

If you’re on a Mac, it get’s even easier to list books on Amazon. An inexpensive application called Delicious
Library, handles most of the work. Using your iSight camera, shoot a picture of the bar code and the software will look up the book, cd, dvd, or video game and add it to your catalog. Then just right click on the item and choose: “Sell on Amazon”. It couldn’t get much easier than that!

Shipping

For most books, I ship them in padding envelopes. I reuse the ones I get in the mail and have supplemented my supply by shopping the sales at Walgreen’s; they frequently have them on sale for about 50 cents each.

If you choose to sell online, I highly recommend you check into using the online service for postage such as Endicia or Stamps.com. You can also use the post office website, but you can’t purchase postage for media rate parcels. Ebay, through PayPal, has a built-in shipping solution, which makes it very easy to ship, and you can choose from UPS and USPS. Most of the online solutions give you a better price on options than you’ll get in person.

Selling online isn’t for everyone. You need to be honest about the quality and condition of items you are selling. And you need to be prompt in processing and shipping orders.

Consider looking for textbooks the next time you’re out bargain hunting. The best “season” for buying is a month or two after the end of the term, and the best time to sell is a week or two before terms begin (that’s when people are looking to buy!).

There are many factors that affect prices: season, region, condition, age, current retail price, and competition.

Season:

Selling items in the off-season makes them a little harder to move; most folks just aren’t looking for Christmas decorations in May, so keep the seasonality of items in mind when pricing. Ditto for gardening tools. Not much of a market for them in September (unless you’re selling a leaf blower!), but they are in high demand in spring. Sweaters and jackets will bring more in an early autumn sale.

Region:

The part of the country you’re selling in plays a big part of what you can hope to get paid for your goods. Garage sales tend to be more prevalent in the suburbs and rural areas, whereas flea markets are more common in urban areas. The general cost of living in your area will also have an effect on prices. If you are in an area hard-hit by the recession, folks just don’t have as much money to spend, so your prices will have to be low enough to move your inventory.

Condition:

Is the item like new? Slightly used? Does it come with its original packaging and/or instructions? Are all the parts included? Or has it obviously been collecting dust in your attic for several years? Dirty stuff is harder to sell, so take the time to clean stuff up.

Age:

Some things are timeless, and some things are even more valuable because they’re older, but just because something is old, doesn’t make it a collectible or antique. Anything you plan on marketing this way will need to be researched. Ebay is probably your best source for current prices (be sure to check the COMPLETED auctions for actual price data). Clothing usually continues to go down in price the older it gets. Other items that get “dated” particularly fast are home dec items. Remember those acrylic bunches of grapes everyone had in the 60s? Not a big market for them now. Ditto for avocado green Tupperware, etc.

Current Retail Price:

It doesn’t really matter what you paid for an item several years ago; today’s prices are all that matter. So, that computer that you paid $1200 for 5 years ago, is likely not even going to get you 10% of it’s original price. This is particular true with technology items: the costs have dropped so dramatically in the past several years that there’s really no good secondary market. That goes for kitchen appliances, DVD players, etc. (In 1986 a new full-size microwave would set you back over $300, now you can get one for less than half that price.)

Competition:

Where else can shoppers find the items you are selling used? Is everyone else in the neighborhood having a sale? Are there many second-hand shops in your area? How unique is your item? Is it something people buy and use forever, or is everyone else also selling the same “as seen on TV” widget.

Oh, and finally, how bad do you want to be rid of the item? (I actually had a guy offer to pay me to take his exercise bike away last year!).

I recommend heading to a few second-hand stores in your area to get an idea of prices, then charge about 70% of what they do. If you have things that you feel may be valuable, check eBay for prices. If you don’t sell these items at your sale, you can always sell them online.

Some of these prices seem shockingly low, so you may want to consider whether donating the items to charity will net you more money as a tax deductible donation. Many popular income tax software packages, such as Turbo Tax, include features to automatically calculate the value of charitable donations using IRS-approved values. At the very least, make sure you take inventory (a digital photo for support is a good idea) of items before donating them to charity.