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A quick way of making a few $/£if you're a bit short after Xmas..

by Kim Standerline
19 replies
Is listing stuff you own on Amazon, I posted something similar to this a couple of years ago, but it can bear repeating

I'm a sucker for romantic fantasy novels and buy em by the shed load on Amazon, (my very fave market place). I rarely buy my books from Amazon itself cos I'm too tight, instead I use their sellers market place and get them for pennies. Once I've read them I sell them on using my own book store on Amazon which I created a couple of years ago (KDS Books). Paranormal romance is a hot seller so they go quickly.

its a win win situation because I get my books for practically nothing, postage is more than covered by Amazon postage fees and sometimes I've even made a small profit.

Its really simple to open an amazon sellers account and doesn't cost you anything unless you go pro, also they pay you straight into your bank account every two weeks which is nice. First time I ever did this I had a load of books to sell and sold 20 overnight (and that was as a new seller).

You don't have to stick to books though, if you have anything else you want to get rid of just sell that, use your imagination. Books are good though and if you dont read prolifically like me, then get yourself down to your local car boot sale/flea market and snap em up for pennies.

To be honest I prefer Amazon over Ebay any time.

Cheers
Kim
#$ or £if #bit #making #quick #short #xmas
  • Profile picture of the author wfhblueprints
    Some great tips Kim!

    Thanks for sharing!
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  • Profile picture of the author MaryKathan
    Amazon FBA is easier then eBay since Amazon will actually mail your books out to the customers. You ship a box full of books to Amazon and they take care of the rest.
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    • Profile picture of the author fluffythewondercat
      I do a lot of business on FBA but be aware that unless you expect to get $5 or more for each book, you'll lose money. Fees are going up in a few days. Just the pick and pack fee will be $1 per book. Order handling fee is an additional $1. And that doesn't even include the 15% Amazon always takes off the top, the monthly storage fee, the 99 cent fee (or the $39.99 pro membership) or your cost for shipping the books to the warehouse. And these days Amazon wants you to ship books all the way across the country.

      I'm actually getting *out* of the book business. High-margin items, on the other hand, do extremely well on Amazon and that's where I'm putting my money.

      fLufF
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    • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
      Sold 2 more books since I posted this, this morning.

      Never used FBA so I couldn't comment but sounds expensive reading what Fluffy has to say. I'm not talking about this as a biz method, just something to bring in some extra cash when your skint..

      Originally Posted by MaryKathan View Post

      Amazon FBA is easier then eBay since Amazon will actually mail your books out to the customers. You ship a box full of books to Amazon and they take care of the rest.
      Some very nice methods there Cyber, you've got me thinking now lol
      Originally Posted by Cyber Rankings View Post

      Some great tips,

      What i used to do as a kid was buy things in bulk on ebay and then sell them on amazon and play.com separately.

      I used to make around £600 a week which was enough to build investment money.

      Here's what i would do:

      Browse for ending soon auctions where people where selling their "playstation 2's ,games,controllers,memory cards etc"

      Once i found a bargain I would quickly take a look and see how much each thing was selling for on amazon. You then add it all up as "potential revenue" and decide upon how much you are willing to buy the items for. I personally only ever went up to half because then I was sure to make a decent profit.

      One example was I brought:

      1 playstation 2
      4 memory cards
      2 controllers
      1 led limited edition controller
      and 16 games

      Total cost - £56 (roughly...)

      I then sold the playstation 2 as second hand on amazon for just under £40
      The memory cards went for £3.50 each
      Controllers went for £6 each
      The limited edition controller didn't sell (lol)
      And I sold the games at an average of £4 each

      £64+ £12 + £14 + £40 = £130

      Revenue = £74 - about £15 for postage = £59

      Total time - around 2-3 hours

      Sorry the figures are so rough I was only 13, the only reason I can remember it fairly clearly is because it was the first money I had ever earned online.

      But basically what I am saying is there is easy money to be made with very simple strategies.

      Good Luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Cyber Rankings
    Some great tips,

    What i used to do as a kid was buy things in bulk on ebay and then sell them on amazon and play.com separately.

    I used to make around £600 a week which was enough to build investment money.

    Here's what i would do:

    Browse for ending soon auctions where people where selling their "playstation 2's ,games,controllers,memory cards etc"

    Once i found a bargain I would quickly take a look and see how much each thing was selling for on amazon. You then add it all up as "potential revenue" and decide upon how much you are willing to buy the items for. I personally only ever went up to half because then I was sure to make a decent profit.

    One example was I brought:

    1 playstation 2
    4 memory cards
    2 controllers
    1 led limited edition controller
    and 16 games

    Total cost - £56 (roughly...)

    I then sold the playstation 2 as second hand on amazon for just under £40
    The memory cards went for £3.50 each
    Controllers went for £6 each
    The limited edition controller didn't sell (lol)
    And I sold the games at an average of £4 each

    £64+ £12 + £14 + £40 = £130

    Revenue = £74 - about £15 for postage = £59

    Total time - around 2-3 hours

    Sorry the figures are so rough I was only 13, the only reason I can remember it fairly clearly is because it was the first money I had ever earned online.

    But basically what I am saying is there is easy money to be made with very simple strategies.

    Good Luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
    Another tip

    Jiffy bags are really expensive to buy from the shop/post office (They are here in the UK anyway). I buy mine from Ebay, just bought 50 for 10 quid with free PP, Jiffy bags are brilliant for sending paperback books.

    Also author names to look out for who are really popular are

    Geena Showalter
    PC Cast
    Kresley Cole
    Lynsay Sands
    Christine Feehan

    To name a few...

    Kim
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  • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
    Quick update on this thread...

    Since posting it I've sold a total of 10 books and I've made about 21 quid after Amazon take their cut and I pay my postage (edited cos I forgot to take Amazon fees off)

    It's nothing to write home about for some folks, but that could buy nearly a weeks worth of groceries for some..

    Cheers
    Kim
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    Something else one mentioning I think Kim is that this not only makes you some pretty simple money quickly, but also gives you a chance to practice your advert writing skills.

    Ok, it doesn't take a great salesperson to sell a cheap paperback maybe, but you still have to present your product in an enticing way. Good to get some practice under your belt whilst earning a few pennies.

    It's a nice way to break your "duck" if you're yet to earn anything online too.

    Love the tip about picking up paperbacks from the local car boot! Can find some real gems if you look hard enough!
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    • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
      You don't need to write adverts, (it's all done for you)

      All you do is pop in either the ISBN number of the title of the book, Amazon give you the book cover automatically, you set your price and condition of the book and that's it. this is the store front that Amazon give me, but I bet folks rarely use it, if they are anything like me they know what they want type in the title and choose from the list of sellers

      Amazon.co.uk:KDS Books Storefront

      Originally Posted by laurenceh View Post

      Something else one mentioning I think Kim is that this not only makes you some pretty simple money quickly, but also gives you a chance to practice your advert writing skills.

      Ok, it doesn't take a great salesperson to sell a cheap paperback maybe, but you still have to present your product in an enticing way. Good to get some practice under your belt whilst earning a few pennies.

      It's a nice way to break your "duck" if you're yet to earn anything online too.

      Love the tip about picking up paperbacks from the local car boot! Can find some real gems if you look hard enough!
      To be honest I'm seriously considering Amazon for a number of projects I'm thinking about

      Kim
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      • Profile picture of the author harrydog
        Kim
        I maybe being a bit thick here but I looked at your store and found your books for sale at £0.01 with £2.80 postage. How do you make money on this? Do you get a cut of the postage costs or am I missing something?
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        • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
          Hi Harry

          I'm not out to make a load of money on my books so I price them really low to sell. It all depends on what the other sellers are selling them at. You can price them higher, but I match or undercut just to get rid of them.

          A few of the books I've just sold were upwards of a few quid which bumped it up a bit (which was nice). But they were pretty much sought after titles as well which went quickly

          It costs me 75 pence to post them add in the cost of a jiffy and round it up to about 85p, that leaves me the difference in postage on those that sell at 0.01

          Not a lot, but then they are not cluttering up my bookshelf...

          Kim

          Edit..

          I don't sell back hardbacks, cost too much in postage, (I give them to my neighbour who is well into car booting)

          Originally Posted by harrydog View Post

          Kim
          I maybe being a bit thick here but I looked at your store and found your books for sale at £0.01 with £2.80 postage. How do you make money on this? Do you get a cut of the postage costs or am I missing something?
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  • Profile picture of the author xxxJamesxxx
    Some great tips there... Hopefully somebody will run with it and make a quick buck or two.

    James Scholes
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  • Profile picture of the author vivi62
    great tips for an after xmas moneyspinner,I myself will be furiously listing everything I havent used on ebay this week.
    Regards
    vivi62
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  • Profile picture of the author hustlinsmoke
    I prefer amazon over ebay too but sometimes there is just too great a price difference as a buyer.

    Thats a good tip, I have many friends who do business with halfprice books, they buy a book for half price and sell it back to halfprice books for maybe 5 to 10 percent of what they paid them for it. Amazon would work well for that.
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    You don't need to write adverts, (it's all done for you)
    Oh that's handy!

    Good old Amazon! Making life easier!

    You're right Kim. I'd left Amazon alone up till now but the more hear about it the more I think it's worth plugging into!
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    • Profile picture of the author harrydog
      Thanks Kim
      so if Ive got it right
      £0.01 sale
      £2.80 Postage
      £2.81 total

      £0.75 Postage
      £0.10 jiffy bag
      £0.85 Total cost

      £2.81 -£0.85 = £1.96 Profit

      what does Amazon take out this?

      sorry to be stupid but just trying to get the whole picture
      Cheers
      mark
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      • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
        Criky your asking me to do calculations now (not good)

        Just checked in my account, sold a book for £5.30, and I got £3.51, postage is 75p which leaves me £2.76

        I didn't take off the Amazon % earlier did I

        I could list my books higher but like I said I'm personally not trying to make money out of this as such, just having a clear out.

        Also you get a number of people (like me) who will buy a couple at a time, they still get charged a postage for each book bought though it probably cost less than £1.30 to send them. To be honest if they do that I tend to partially refund their postage.

        I do know many of the booksellers on Amazon who price their books low like I do, tend to rely on multiple postage to bump up the price. (I read that on their forum).

        If anyone wants to make a bit more cash they could list them higher, many sellers do and I'm sure they must sell.

        One of the first things I look for when buying a book from Amazon sellers is their feedback and whether they are in the UK or not. I don't mind spending a bit extra if they meet my criteria, and if I do that, I'm sure others must do the same so pricing higher would probably be ok, I just want rid of mine though..

        Kim

        Originally Posted by harrydog View Post

        Thanks Kim
        so if Ive got it right
        £0.01 sale
        £2.80 Postage
        £2.81 total

        £0.75 Postage
        £0.10 jiffy bag
        £0.85 Total cost

        £2.81 -£0.85 = £1.96 Profit

        what does Amazon take out this?

        sorry to be stupid but just trying to get the whole picture
        Cheers
        mark
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