How do I price books using the benefits of technology?
April 22, 2013 1:00 PM Subscribe
1. Non-profit bookstore.
2. Books are donated.
3. Books are priced for $1 or $2.
4. Resellers come in and buy books.
5. ???
6. ???
7. No profit
This is a situation I have observed and thought over but not discussed with any employees of the shop. My lengthy thought-results are as follows:
Setting:
I help out at a non-profit bookstore. The books are donated, shelved, and sold for (mostly) $1. Some customers come in often and scan item barcodes with iDevices and often leave with large purchases.
Problem:
The store is losing money to these customers. From many accounts they resell their purchases on Amazon for a significant profit.
Proposed Solution:
Design a process to price the books as a function of the market price.
- The market price would be defined as the lowest price of the used book on Amazon.
- The function BookStorePrice(MarketPrice) would be defined by the shop manager.
Assets:
- Internet connection
- Various older XP/linux computers with associated hardware.
- An android (Galaxy Tab) tablet.
- A donation of $150 towards a barcode scanner is offered.
- Limited scripting/programming skill is offered.
Users:
The staff are intelligent, mostly of ages 50 - 85, and are used to normal web browsing. They are understaffed.
Facility:
The floor space is limited. Most of the floor space is dedicated to displaying the inventory with a small processing station/storeroom at one end.
Proposed Process:
1. Feed Amazon book ISBN.
2. Get Amazon market price for book.
3. Apply function BookStorePrice(MarketPrice).
4. Price book.
Mechanics of process v1:
Set up a computer in the processing room with a keyboard. As each book comes in the employee types it into Amazon and looks at the market price. Then the employee calculates the bookstore price and marks the book.
Problems with v1:
- This is very time consuming and adds many steps to the process. Adding a scanner would slightly improve the speed.
- There are many steps for the user. In personal experience this often leads to confusion and mistakes.
Mechanics of process v2:
Set up a computer in the processing room with a scanner. Build a single screen program to run on the computer that takes an input of ISBN. It has three outputs: Book title, market price, and bookstore price. User scans book and immediately gets the price back.
Problems with v2:
Looking up the price is hard. Their Product Advertising API is only licensed for that cases that[have] the principal purpose of advertising and marketing the Amazon Site and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon Site[4b]. I could scrape the html but that makes me nervous for future stability.
Questions for you:
How could I programmatically access the price to make v2 a reality?
There is probably a better way to do this than v1 or v2. Any ideas?
Is all this feasible? I accept the fact that I'm beyond the plate and into the platter if not already the pot of beans.
Thanks everyone.
This is a situation I have observed and thought over but not discussed with any employees of the shop. My lengthy thought-results are as follows:
Setting:
I help out at a non-profit bookstore. The books are donated, shelved, and sold for (mostly) $1. Some customers come in often and scan item barcodes with iDevices and often leave with large purchases.
Problem:
The store is losing money to these customers. From many accounts they resell their purchases on Amazon for a significant profit.
Proposed Solution:
Design a process to price the books as a function of the market price.
- The market price would be defined as the lowest price of the used book on Amazon.
- The function BookStorePrice(MarketPrice) would be defined by the shop manager.
Assets:
- Internet connection
- Various older XP/linux computers with associated hardware.
- An android (Galaxy Tab) tablet.
- A donation of $150 towards a barcode scanner is offered.
- Limited scripting/programming skill is offered.
Users:
The staff are intelligent, mostly of ages 50 - 85, and are used to normal web browsing. They are understaffed.
Facility:
The floor space is limited. Most of the floor space is dedicated to displaying the inventory with a small processing station/storeroom at one end.
Proposed Process:
1. Feed Amazon book ISBN.
2. Get Amazon market price for book.
3. Apply function BookStorePrice(MarketPrice).
4. Price book.
Mechanics of process v1:
Set up a computer in the processing room with a keyboard. As each book comes in the employee types it into Amazon and looks at the market price. Then the employee calculates the bookstore price and marks the book.
Problems with v1:
- This is very time consuming and adds many steps to the process. Adding a scanner would slightly improve the speed.
- There are many steps for the user. In personal experience this often leads to confusion and mistakes.
Mechanics of process v2:
Set up a computer in the processing room with a scanner. Build a single screen program to run on the computer that takes an input of ISBN. It has three outputs: Book title, market price, and bookstore price. User scans book and immediately gets the price back.
Problems with v2:
Looking up the price is hard. Their Product Advertising API is only licensed for that cases that[have] the principal purpose of advertising and marketing the Amazon Site and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon Site[4b]. I could scrape the html but that makes me nervous for future stability.
Questions for you:
How could I programmatically access the price to make v2 a reality?
There is probably a better way to do this than v1 or v2. Any ideas?
Is all this feasible? I accept the fact that I'm beyond the plate and into the platter if not already the pot of beans.
Thanks everyone.
I don't know how to do this technically but I don't think its going to work from an economic perspective. Your bookstore is not amazon and you're probably not going to get Amazon prices for a majority of your books.
I understand how it seems you're losing money to people picking over your stock and selling it on amazon but the difference between what their buying the books for and what their selling it for probably isn't an amount you can fully capture unless you're willing to devote the time and energy to selling the books yourself on amazon (and if may be a good idea to scan them in and sell any that have a price making this realistic). People go to amazon for specific books and its doubtful unless the book is super popular that the people who want it are going to wander into the store.
In essence you need to price your books at a price which makes you a sufficient profit in the first place - which is a price people locally will buy them for.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 1:08 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
I understand how it seems you're losing money to people picking over your stock and selling it on amazon but the difference between what their buying the books for and what their selling it for probably isn't an amount you can fully capture unless you're willing to devote the time and energy to selling the books yourself on amazon (and if may be a good idea to scan them in and sell any that have a price making this realistic). People go to amazon for specific books and its doubtful unless the book is super popular that the people who want it are going to wander into the store.
In essence you need to price your books at a price which makes you a sufficient profit in the first place - which is a price people locally will buy them for.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 1:08 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
I apologize in advance because I'm about to Not Answer the Question, but:
Are you sure you have to fight this? Are you really "Losing money" because these resellers are purchasing books to resell them? I mean, they get books, you (or, I assume, your nonprofit) get the money, everybody wins.... right?
The big danger is if you raise your prices based on Amazon prices, you've (probably) lost sales, and you're definitely not going to sell as many as the resellers could.
My childhood library has a similar setup - donated books are sold at very simple price points. Rather than fight the resellers, they're embraced/exploited - stock is sold off at extreme discount at the start of summer, and new books primarily shelved for the fall. So resellers (or anyone, really, but they're the targets) can come in and have first dibs before the "First" sale of the year - for a $50 up-front cost, plus of course all the book sales themselves.
Is there anything you could do similarly, that you can use to leverage the resellers rather than treating as an enemy people who are probably very good customers?
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:10 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]
Are you sure you have to fight this? Are you really "Losing money" because these resellers are purchasing books to resell them? I mean, they get books, you (or, I assume, your nonprofit) get the money, everybody wins.... right?
The big danger is if you raise your prices based on Amazon prices, you've (probably) lost sales, and you're definitely not going to sell as many as the resellers could.
My childhood library has a similar setup - donated books are sold at very simple price points. Rather than fight the resellers, they're embraced/exploited - stock is sold off at extreme discount at the start of summer, and new books primarily shelved for the fall. So resellers (or anyone, really, but they're the targets) can come in and have first dibs before the "First" sale of the year - for a $50 up-front cost, plus of course all the book sales themselves.
Is there anything you could do similarly, that you can use to leverage the resellers rather than treating as an enemy people who are probably very good customers?
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:10 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]
If these people are doing it, perhaps software already exists to do it.
For what it's worth, this seems like it would be useful to many charitable organizations that sell second-hand books, not just your organization.
posted by idb at 1:12 PM on April 22, 2013
For what it's worth, this seems like it would be useful to many charitable organizations that sell second-hand books, not just your organization.
posted by idb at 1:12 PM on April 22, 2013
I am a little confused by this statement...
"The store is losing money to these customers. " You are losing money due to your pricing. Not the customers, right? I mean, would you lose less money if they didn't come in and buy these books?
If you priced these books according to the market value they might just sit on the shelf forever. The reason these people are buying them is because they can resell them.
So why not just charge $5 a book and everyone is a winner. You don't have to tax your staff to much with maximising profits on the books, the books will still move off the shelves.
I would think the last thing you'd want is to spend umpteen bajillion hours pricing books and then having them just sit there on a shelf and in the span of a year be worth nothing when colleges stop using them as text books or whatever is driving the price up.
posted by ian1977 at 1:12 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
"The store is losing money to these customers. " You are losing money due to your pricing. Not the customers, right? I mean, would you lose less money if they didn't come in and buy these books?
If you priced these books according to the market value they might just sit on the shelf forever. The reason these people are buying them is because they can resell them.
So why not just charge $5 a book and everyone is a winner. You don't have to tax your staff to much with maximising profits on the books, the books will still move off the shelves.
I would think the last thing you'd want is to spend umpteen bajillion hours pricing books and then having them just sit there on a shelf and in the span of a year be worth nothing when colleges stop using them as text books or whatever is driving the price up.
posted by ian1977 at 1:12 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Well, you can scan the books, determine what the retail prices are, and undercut them enough so that you're selling them for slightly more than you purchased them for. Then there's a bit of a profit. What's being done with the profits? Are you funding the building, or does the bookstore take the profits and use them to fund something else (in which case, it's more of a book/thrift store than a non-profit book store). I'm having a hard time undersanding if it's even in the bookstore's interest to profit from their interactions.
Clearly, the books are underpriced. I don't think you need to do any calculus to determine that.
Either raise the prices and realize more profit, or continue to sell the books as is, which seems to work for everyone else there.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:14 PM on April 22, 2013
Clearly, the books are underpriced. I don't think you need to do any calculus to determine that.
Either raise the prices and realize more profit, or continue to sell the books as is, which seems to work for everyone else there.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:14 PM on April 22, 2013
Here's an android app. The rest is simply process, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding.
By "process", I mean that after getting the amazon price, you could have your volunteers enter the price into a simple spreadsheet or calculator to get your local shop price.
posted by idb at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2013
By "process", I mean that after getting the amazon price, you could have your volunteers enter the price into a simple spreadsheet or calculator to get your local shop price.
posted by idb at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2013
I think your premise is flawed, as previous responses have indicated. However, I will attempt to answer your question.
Why not just use the reseller applications to do what you want? A common one is BookScouter, which is available for Android and iOS - for free even! You don't even need a barcode scanner - you can use the device's camera instead. It's pre-existing, and it will give you an idea of how to price the books.
posted by saeculorum at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Why not just use the reseller applications to do what you want? A common one is BookScouter, which is available for Android and iOS - for free even! You don't even need a barcode scanner - you can use the device's camera instead. It's pre-existing, and it will give you an idea of how to price the books.
posted by saeculorum at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
The store is losing money to these customers. From many accounts they resell their purchases on Amazon for a significant profit.
I hear what you are saying. At the same time the store in its current setup can not take advantage of the things these book purchasers have (time, access to technology) and so I'm not sure this comparison is quite apt. I'm sympathetic but I'm not so sure the bookstore becoming a place where people suddenly pay more for books based on what people will pay for them on the internet is going to become a reality.
THAT said, there is no reason you can't take more advantage of technology and access to pricing information. Instead of going to Amazon you might want to check out a site called ISBN.nu which does comparison stuff and has an input slot for ISBNs. You could probably also get a scanner donated to you for free, heck I have one you could have. And you could shift from a $1-2 model to a $1-5-10 model which might take advantage of what you know about the books and at the same time not complicate pricing. Anything over $20 goes to the store's ebay or Amazon account and you get a volunteer person to handle the shipping and fulfillment aspects.
But really you have to be mindful of the culture of the people you're dealing with. We deal with this all the time in the public library. You want to show your volunteers that they are valued and make sure they can stay inside their comfort zone while helping the store. You'd like the bookstore to be taking advantage of things it is poised to be able to take advantage of (knowledge of pricing) and maybe leverage that a little. And aprt of this is also being aware of what sort of volume you are looking at. For 20 books a day you can use ISBN.nu or even amazon. For 50 you could maybe do that or scan them into an excel spreadsheet and bulk batch it. Over this and you'd want a script and the user education and maintenance that goes along with that. Maybe its just me but I don't see a terrific difference between v1 and v2 in your scenarios especially at lower volumes.
posted by jessamyn at 1:17 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I hear what you are saying. At the same time the store in its current setup can not take advantage of the things these book purchasers have (time, access to technology) and so I'm not sure this comparison is quite apt. I'm sympathetic but I'm not so sure the bookstore becoming a place where people suddenly pay more for books based on what people will pay for them on the internet is going to become a reality.
THAT said, there is no reason you can't take more advantage of technology and access to pricing information. Instead of going to Amazon you might want to check out a site called ISBN.nu which does comparison stuff and has an input slot for ISBNs. You could probably also get a scanner donated to you for free, heck I have one you could have. And you could shift from a $1-2 model to a $1-5-10 model which might take advantage of what you know about the books and at the same time not complicate pricing. Anything over $20 goes to the store's ebay or Amazon account and you get a volunteer person to handle the shipping and fulfillment aspects.
But really you have to be mindful of the culture of the people you're dealing with. We deal with this all the time in the public library. You want to show your volunteers that they are valued and make sure they can stay inside their comfort zone while helping the store. You'd like the bookstore to be taking advantage of things it is poised to be able to take advantage of (knowledge of pricing) and maybe leverage that a little. And aprt of this is also being aware of what sort of volume you are looking at. For 20 books a day you can use ISBN.nu or even amazon. For 50 you could maybe do that or scan them into an excel spreadsheet and bulk batch it. Over this and you'd want a script and the user education and maintenance that goes along with that. Maybe its just me but I don't see a terrific difference between v1 and v2 in your scenarios especially at lower volumes.
posted by jessamyn at 1:17 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, your problem is that you're selling the books too cheaply.
I worked for a nonprofit bookstore and they sold things for what they could get for them, which was closely tied to the price of the books online. The store had an Amazon store and entire online order fulfillment department.
Even if you don't choose to go that route, you should definitely have someone pricing the books individually according to what they're worth. We had one person who was The Book Pricer, and they dealt with anyone coming in to donate books. My guess is that they used the ISBN to google search the going rate, but for a lot of books we kept it simple with, like "half off the cover price" or "old public domain stuff is $1 apiece" or the like.
posted by Sara C. at 1:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I worked for a nonprofit bookstore and they sold things for what they could get for them, which was closely tied to the price of the books online. The store had an Amazon store and entire online order fulfillment department.
Even if you don't choose to go that route, you should definitely have someone pricing the books individually according to what they're worth. We had one person who was The Book Pricer, and they dealt with anyone coming in to donate books. My guess is that they used the ISBN to google search the going rate, but for a lot of books we kept it simple with, like "half off the cover price" or "old public domain stuff is $1 apiece" or the like.
posted by Sara C. at 1:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I don't think my advice was entirely clear. What I'm saying is:
Have a limited number of people you task with thinking about this (probably only one person, in a small understaffed shop).
Have the metric be SIMPLE and mostly not require you to individually price each book via looking it up somewhere. Have basic standards based on the type of book that it is and the condition it's in.
Looking it up is good for some books you think might be valuable.
When I worked in a non-profit bookstore it was easy enough to teach anyone of any age/technology level to price most of the books that came into the store.
posted by Sara C. at 1:28 PM on April 22, 2013
Have a limited number of people you task with thinking about this (probably only one person, in a small understaffed shop).
Have the metric be SIMPLE and mostly not require you to individually price each book via looking it up somewhere. Have basic standards based on the type of book that it is and the condition it's in.
Looking it up is good for some books you think might be valuable.
When I worked in a non-profit bookstore it was easy enough to teach anyone of any age/technology level to price most of the books that came into the store.
posted by Sara C. at 1:28 PM on April 22, 2013
As others have commented, you have two options: You could try to raise the prices on particularly valuable books so as to gain some of the profits that resellers are currently getting, or you could try to bypass the resellers and sell them by mail yourselves.
If you try the first, you can't price them too close to the online price. As described in this article, Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman, the market is very competitive and buying, organzing, storing, selling, and shipping is time consuming. A simpler version of that approach is charging a fee for early access to new stock.
If you try the second, you'll have to do the work yourself. You might want to talk with other organzations that have gone that route; see this article for examples.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:29 PM on April 22, 2013
If you try the first, you can't price them too close to the online price. As described in this article, Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman, the market is very competitive and buying, organzing, storing, selling, and shipping is time consuming. A simpler version of that approach is charging a fee for early access to new stock.
If you try the second, you'll have to do the work yourself. You might want to talk with other organzations that have gone that route; see this article for examples.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:29 PM on April 22, 2013
I was coming in to say (part of) what Jessamyn said - the lookup function could scale as long as you're not doing huge daily volumes. The enormous (for profit) used bookstore in my town has a fairly simple "you pay half the printed cover price" on most books, and special/rare things are priced with a sticker.
posted by ersatzkat at 1:30 PM on April 22, 2013
posted by ersatzkat at 1:30 PM on April 22, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks for all the responses guys! I should have clarified from the start, I'm only an interested volunteer. An interested volunteer that gets way too much enjoyment from using tech to solve problems. The problem has rather fascinated me, partly because it must be a common issue for other small stores.
Now to answer the questions:
Why not just sell them on Amazon yourselves?
I would love to see that happen, but I don't think the the store has the manpower to add order fulfillment.
"The store is losing money to these customers. " You are losing money due to your pricing. Not the customers, right?
Totally right! Our prices are really low and the resellers totally love it!
Your bookstore is not amazon and you're probably not going to get Amazon prices for a majority of your books.
I totally agree. I would often be wary of even approaching 1/2 of Amazon's lowest price. The resellers totally have a place in this eco system, I was hoping to change their roles from highway robbers to friendly traders. They purchase their wares from us for next to nothing. I'm hoping to weight the prices to where we meet in a happy medium.
posted by Folk at 1:39 PM on April 22, 2013
Now to answer the questions:
Why not just sell them on Amazon yourselves?
I would love to see that happen, but I don't think the the store has the manpower to add order fulfillment.
"The store is losing money to these customers. " You are losing money due to your pricing. Not the customers, right?
Totally right! Our prices are really low and the resellers totally love it!
Your bookstore is not amazon and you're probably not going to get Amazon prices for a majority of your books.
I totally agree. I would often be wary of even approaching 1/2 of Amazon's lowest price. The resellers totally have a place in this eco system, I was hoping to change their roles from highway robbers to friendly traders. They purchase their wares from us for next to nothing. I'm hoping to weight the prices to where we meet in a happy medium.
posted by Folk at 1:39 PM on April 22, 2013
Is the goal of your nonprofit to make as much money as possible to benefit a cause? Or is the goal to get good books in the hands of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to read them?
If it's the former, then I agree with others above: get your own scanner just like the resellers are using, and price more valuable books higher.
If, however, selling books cheaply is the mission of your nonprofit, and the reason you're upset about the resellers is that they're buying cheap books not to read them, but to make money off of them, I'd suggest a different tack. A lot of library book sales, because their goal is mostly to put books in the hands of readers cheaply, simply ban the use of electronic scanners. You could do that, and it would allow you to keep prices low for readers, but make it much harder for professional resellers to engage in arbitrage.
posted by decathecting at 1:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
If it's the former, then I agree with others above: get your own scanner just like the resellers are using, and price more valuable books higher.
If, however, selling books cheaply is the mission of your nonprofit, and the reason you're upset about the resellers is that they're buying cheap books not to read them, but to make money off of them, I'd suggest a different tack. A lot of library book sales, because their goal is mostly to put books in the hands of readers cheaply, simply ban the use of electronic scanners. You could do that, and it would allow you to keep prices low for readers, but make it much harder for professional resellers to engage in arbitrage.
posted by decathecting at 1:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Here is a thought....randomly price oh....1,000 books using the scanner method...then weigh the books and calculate the average price per pound and then discount from there and charge for books by weight?
posted by ian1977 at 1:44 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ian1977 at 1:44 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Two thoughts:
1) A classic markdown retail model (say $10 the first week on sale, then $5, then $2, then $1) would capture more of the resellers' gains. It would also encourage frequent visits by non-reseller buyers. It may be tough explaining to customers why a stained kid's book is $10.
2) Your easiest answer would be to find a reseller who will partner with the store. It doesn't seem crazy to me that a reseller would agree to donate a significant cut of the proceeds in exchange for first crack at all donations.
posted by backupjesus at 1:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
1) A classic markdown retail model (say $10 the first week on sale, then $5, then $2, then $1) would capture more of the resellers' gains. It would also encourage frequent visits by non-reseller buyers. It may be tough explaining to customers why a stained kid's book is $10.
2) Your easiest answer would be to find a reseller who will partner with the store. It doesn't seem crazy to me that a reseller would agree to donate a significant cut of the proceeds in exchange for first crack at all donations.
posted by backupjesus at 1:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: So why not just charge $5 a book and everyone is a winner.
Most of our books are prices perfectly at $1. They are worth little enough that the resellers don't care, but they are still good books. I'm trying to catch the gems. Just this afternoon I found one worth $300. Even if we just sold it for $50 we would love that extra $49 and the resellers still have a hefty margin.
If these people are doing it, perhaps software already exists to do it.
You're right, as people are trickling in to tell me.
Is there anything you could do similarly[working with the resellers], that you can use to leverage the resellers rather than treating as an enemy people who are probably very good customers?
That's an excellent path to explore. Thank you! We get books donated every day, so it's not quite the same situation, but something along that line should be pondered on and looked into. I'm open to ideas.
What's being done with the profits?
The store is out to make a profit to directly fund a local non-profit. It is owned and run by that same organization. I'm sorry I was unclear.
posted by Folk at 1:55 PM on April 22, 2013
Most of our books are prices perfectly at $1. They are worth little enough that the resellers don't care, but they are still good books. I'm trying to catch the gems. Just this afternoon I found one worth $300. Even if we just sold it for $50 we would love that extra $49 and the resellers still have a hefty margin.
If these people are doing it, perhaps software already exists to do it.
You're right, as people are trickling in to tell me.
Is there anything you could do similarly[working with the resellers], that you can use to leverage the resellers rather than treating as an enemy people who are probably very good customers?
That's an excellent path to explore. Thank you! We get books donated every day, so it's not quite the same situation, but something along that line should be pondered on and looked into. I'm open to ideas.
What's being done with the profits?
The store is out to make a profit to directly fund a local non-profit. It is owned and run by that same organization. I'm sorry I was unclear.
posted by Folk at 1:55 PM on April 22, 2013
The Amazon resellers buy from you, list on amazon, store the books (possibly for a long time) and then maybe sell for a profit. But some books won't sell at all.
So the total profit they make may already be a lot less than you think from the raw numbers.
Also if any really collectable early first editions get handed in, well those probably don't have barcodes at all. I suspect your best bet here may be to focus on finding that top 1% of most valuable books.
posted by Lanark at 1:59 PM on April 22, 2013
So the total profit they make may already be a lot less than you think from the raw numbers.
Also if any really collectable early first editions get handed in, well those probably don't have barcodes at all. I suspect your best bet here may be to focus on finding that top 1% of most valuable books.
posted by Lanark at 1:59 PM on April 22, 2013
I worked for a nonprofit bookstore and they sold things for what they could get for them, which was closely tied to the price of the books online. The store had an Amazon store and entire online order fulfillment department.
I worked for a similar project and it was a shit-ton of work and a real nightmare. If you switch over to online sales (which you'll need to do to compete with the resellers), you will need dedicated staff. You'll be updating your items on amazon constantly, you'll be going to the post office constantly, you'll be at risk of getting bad reviews from buyers if you are not as fast as someone who runs a for-profit, non-volunteer operation.
Here is what I would suggest: cull the most valuable books and sell them on Amazon. You can quickly develop an eye for this, it cuts down on how much online sales you are doing because you are not selling all of them online, and you'll still make some money while keeping at least some of the sales from resellers.
Actually, I'm much more about "keeping books cheap so that poor people can afford them both because some poor folks like to read and because reselling is a job that a lot of low-income/unemployed people do", and I've been against upselling books every time I've been part of a book charity.
posted by Frowner at 2:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
I worked for a similar project and it was a shit-ton of work and a real nightmare. If you switch over to online sales (which you'll need to do to compete with the resellers), you will need dedicated staff. You'll be updating your items on amazon constantly, you'll be going to the post office constantly, you'll be at risk of getting bad reviews from buyers if you are not as fast as someone who runs a for-profit, non-volunteer operation.
Here is what I would suggest: cull the most valuable books and sell them on Amazon. You can quickly develop an eye for this, it cuts down on how much online sales you are doing because you are not selling all of them online, and you'll still make some money while keeping at least some of the sales from resellers.
Actually, I'm much more about "keeping books cheap so that poor people can afford them both because some poor folks like to read and because reselling is a job that a lot of low-income/unemployed people do", and I've been against upselling books every time I've been part of a book charity.
posted by Frowner at 2:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
If you're ultimately just interested in turning donated books into cash, and don't want anything to do with Amazon:
Powell's Books in Portland OR has this service where you can just enter a bunch of ISBNs for the books you want to sell; they'll notify you which ones they want, and then you ship them out, and get cash for them.
posted by seemoreglass at 2:04 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Powell's Books in Portland OR has this service where you can just enter a bunch of ISBNs for the books you want to sell; they'll notify you which ones they want, and then you ship them out, and get cash for them.
posted by seemoreglass at 2:04 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
So, someone mentioned Bookscouter. What this does is shops your book to major used book sellers like Amazon, Powells, etc. Powells might pay you $3 for a book that they will resell for $15. They pay for a shipping label for you to send them the books. This could help you capture some of the difference between $1 and the Amazon price. You won't get the full market value, but you don't have to warehouse the books and wait for a buyer, either.
You could run your most promising books through Bookscouter or just shop them all to your favorite for-profit used book seller. Anything that they offer more than a couple bucks for may be worth sending to them.
I would be careful, though, because you may want the resellers' business. Getting people in your store is a good thing. If the resellers ever buy books for their own enjoyment, then you can think of the rare gems they're coming in for as sort of a loss leader. Having people in your store also encourages others to come in - it's a weird psychology of retail thing that really works.
posted by payoto at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
You could run your most promising books through Bookscouter or just shop them all to your favorite for-profit used book seller. Anything that they offer more than a couple bucks for may be worth sending to them.
I would be careful, though, because you may want the resellers' business. Getting people in your store is a good thing. If the resellers ever buy books for their own enjoyment, then you can think of the rare gems they're coming in for as sort of a loss leader. Having people in your store also encourages others to come in - it's a weird psychology of retail thing that really works.
posted by payoto at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Your goals appear to be to maximize the income for the non-profit and to minimize the additional time and expense. To accomplish both, think of the book resellers as an ally, not an a enemy. The reseller already has the technology and time to identify the higher value books. There should be a deal to be struck between the non-profit and one or more resellers where:
1) The reseller scans all newly collected books;
2) The reseller identifies the books that have a higher than normal value
3) You have an agreement in place for the reseller then to purchase those books (at a price you can negotiate before hand...e.g. 50% of the Amazon value).
I've seen this type of system used effectively at one of our local libraries.
posted by dpaul at 2:08 PM on April 22, 2013
1) The reseller scans all newly collected books;
2) The reseller identifies the books that have a higher than normal value
3) You have an agreement in place for the reseller then to purchase those books (at a price you can negotiate before hand...e.g. 50% of the Amazon value).
I've seen this type of system used effectively at one of our local libraries.
posted by dpaul at 2:08 PM on April 22, 2013
Response by poster: Here's an android app.[Amazon Mobile]
I have issues with barcode apps. It takes [me?] forever to get a good scan. But you are right. That really would be one of the simpler solutions.
A common one is BookScouter
I just installed it and tried it out. It's really nice! The camera is really fast compared to most scanning apps I have tried. However it does not seem to be giving me Amazon prices which concern me. I will look into this one. Also the books I tried got really low prices, but it may just be the (weird) books I tried.
Anything over $20 goes to the store's ebay or Amazon account and you get a volunteer person to handle the shipping and fulfillment aspects.
I would love to see that happen. A small hope would be that if I can get this going they will start to realize how much they are missing out on. Maybe eventually they will start an online department.
posted by Folk at 2:15 PM on April 22, 2013
I have issues with barcode apps. It takes [me?] forever to get a good scan. But you are right. That really would be one of the simpler solutions.
A common one is BookScouter
I just installed it and tried it out. It's really nice! The camera is really fast compared to most scanning apps I have tried. However it does not seem to be giving me Amazon prices which concern me. I will look into this one. Also the books I tried got really low prices, but it may just be the (weird) books I tried.
Anything over $20 goes to the store's ebay or Amazon account and you get a volunteer person to handle the shipping and fulfillment aspects.
I would love to see that happen. A small hope would be that if I can get this going they will start to realize how much they are missing out on. Maybe eventually they will start an online department.
posted by Folk at 2:15 PM on April 22, 2013
My daughter works for a subsidiary of Books a Million called 2nd and Charles which buys and sells used books among other media items. They seem to base what they charge on condition of book. Maybe the ones you have that are more in mint condition you could simply charge two bucks for? (Interestingly enough I have found some real gems in their free pile, go figure.)
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:18 PM on April 22, 2013
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:18 PM on April 22, 2013
I have issues with barcode apps.
The Amazon app also has an option to snap a picture of the book cover instead of barcode scanning. Might be worth a try.
posted by gueneverey at 2:33 PM on April 22, 2013
The Amazon app also has an option to snap a picture of the book cover instead of barcode scanning. Might be worth a try.
posted by gueneverey at 2:33 PM on April 22, 2013
Why don't you just scan the bar codes and have the staff apply some very simple rule by hand, such as "if the Amazon price is over $5, write down half that price on a post-it note and stick it inside the front cover," and otherwise use your regular $1/$2 practice? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good - the important part is getting price data, it is way-way secondary to build up an electronic database of prices or a fully automated pricing workflow.
As to having problems with bar code scanning apps, sorry to hear that. Maybe try using the latest iPhone / android device in the room, and making sure you scan in a well-lighted spot? I just scanned a book with my Amazon Mobile app in less than a second; barcode scanners are not uniformly bad.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
As to having problems with bar code scanning apps, sorry to hear that. Maybe try using the latest iPhone / android device in the room, and making sure you scan in a well-lighted spot? I just scanned a book with my Amazon Mobile app in less than a second; barcode scanners are not uniformly bad.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
I have some of the process questions that folks above do, and I'd wonder to what extent this current situation isn't just fine. You might identify these huge differences that these buyers are doing arbitrage on at the cost of making them go away.
But.
If you want an off-the-shelf solution then the one I know of is Delicious Library. On mine there's an optional column that will look up the current selling price on Amazon. I presume they meet the metric of purpose since there's a built-in 'sell on amazon' option.
You can either use a bar code scanner or the mac's built-in camera. The bar code works OMG so much better and faster and you can get a usb wedge device for very little. You need to have a mac but getting an affordable one is not hard anymore; a several-generations-old laptop would do just fine.
Now, I think you want to be careful about trusting this info or altering your pricing. But you could probably just have a process where you check every book and things going for above-cover you put a sticker on to make $2 instead of $1.
posted by phearlez at 2:43 PM on April 22, 2013
But.
If you want an off-the-shelf solution then the one I know of is Delicious Library. On mine there's an optional column that will look up the current selling price on Amazon. I presume they meet the metric of purpose since there's a built-in 'sell on amazon' option.
You can either use a bar code scanner or the mac's built-in camera. The bar code works OMG so much better and faster and you can get a usb wedge device for very little. You need to have a mac but getting an affordable one is not hard anymore; a several-generations-old laptop would do just fine.
Now, I think you want to be careful about trusting this info or altering your pricing. But you could probably just have a process where you check every book and things going for above-cover you put a sticker on to make $2 instead of $1.
posted by phearlez at 2:43 PM on April 22, 2013
Response by poster: For 50[books a day] you could maybe do that or scan them into an excel spreadsheet and bulk batch it.
I processed 40 new books just this afternoon, and I'm told another volunteer had already processed the morning arrivals. So we have more than 50/day, but probably less than 100.
...user education and maintenance...
I don't see a terrific difference between v1 and v2
My hopeful solution would have minimal user training as a high priority. Ideally they would just slide a barcode under a scanner and get a single number returned on the screen. That is what v2 is supposed to be.
Have the metric be SIMPLE and mostly not require you to individually price each book via looking it up somewhere. Have basic standards based on the type of book that it is and the condition it's in.
You're taking away the fun of me throwing an overabundance of tech at the problem!
I'm not positive that we have the knowledge to set those metrics.
I was coming in to say (part of) what Jessamyn said - the lookup function could scale as long as you're not doing huge daily volumes. The enormous (for profit) used bookstore in my town has a fairly simple "you pay half the printed cover price" on most books, and special/rare things are priced with a sticker.
Many of the books are really perfectly priced at $1. We love to see stock go, and we love people reading. We just want to catch those relative few that actually have a market online.
Your easiest answer would be to find a reseller who will partner with the store.
There should be a deal to be struck between the non-profit and one or more resellers where:[...]
Continuing Tomorrowful's idea. It's a good one, and it's nice because the reseller deals with all the annoying tech while we can stay with our simple pricing. I think I will try to get to know some of the resellers.
Powell's Books in Portland OR has this service...
Powells might pay you $3 for a book that they will resell for $15.
Now on my list to research.
If they really offer that good of a price and pay for shipping then that sounds rather good.
The Amazon app also has an option to snap a picture of the book cover instead of barcode scanning.
It doesent work on barcodes, but it does seem to be faster. Which seems weird to me.
posted by Folk at 2:59 PM on April 22, 2013
I processed 40 new books just this afternoon, and I'm told another volunteer had already processed the morning arrivals. So we have more than 50/day, but probably less than 100.
...user education and maintenance...
I don't see a terrific difference between v1 and v2
My hopeful solution would have minimal user training as a high priority. Ideally they would just slide a barcode under a scanner and get a single number returned on the screen. That is what v2 is supposed to be.
Have the metric be SIMPLE and mostly not require you to individually price each book via looking it up somewhere. Have basic standards based on the type of book that it is and the condition it's in.
You're taking away the fun of me throwing an overabundance of tech at the problem!
I'm not positive that we have the knowledge to set those metrics.
I was coming in to say (part of) what Jessamyn said - the lookup function could scale as long as you're not doing huge daily volumes. The enormous (for profit) used bookstore in my town has a fairly simple "you pay half the printed cover price" on most books, and special/rare things are priced with a sticker.
Many of the books are really perfectly priced at $1. We love to see stock go, and we love people reading. We just want to catch those relative few that actually have a market online.
Your easiest answer would be to find a reseller who will partner with the store.
There should be a deal to be struck between the non-profit and one or more resellers where:[...]
Continuing Tomorrowful's idea. It's a good one, and it's nice because the reseller deals with all the annoying tech while we can stay with our simple pricing. I think I will try to get to know some of the resellers.
Powell's Books in Portland OR has this service...
Powells might pay you $3 for a book that they will resell for $15.
Now on my list to research.
If they really offer that good of a price and pay for shipping then that sounds rather good.
The Amazon app also has an option to snap a picture of the book cover instead of barcode scanning.
It doesent work on barcodes, but it does seem to be faster. Which seems weird to me.
posted by Folk at 2:59 PM on April 22, 2013
Just this afternoon I found one worth $300. Even if we just sold it for $50 we would love that extra $49 and the resellers still have a hefty margin.
Assuming your resellers have $50--if they don't, you're stuck with a book that someone wants, but you can't find the buyers. If you found that today, why not sell it on Amazon? The order fulfillment isn't that much work. Resellers aren't rolling in ready cash. Or else take a look at Textbooks.com--they pay the shipping.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:05 PM on April 22, 2013
Assuming your resellers have $50--if they don't, you're stuck with a book that someone wants, but you can't find the buyers. If you found that today, why not sell it on Amazon? The order fulfillment isn't that much work. Resellers aren't rolling in ready cash. Or else take a look at Textbooks.com--they pay the shipping.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:05 PM on April 22, 2013
I'll cop to not having read the other answers here before adding my two cents but that's because part of my day job is actually selling books on amazon (and in store) for a non-profit.
I just wanted to give you an idea of how WE do it so that maybe you could see that even though this is an organization staffed by volunteers, you can do this too.
Here is our process, with a breakdown in time it takes to perform each task:
-- Sort books. Once you've been at it for a while you'll get a really good feel for what's "amazon-able" and what isn't. In the beginning, I'd advise not sorting them at all. Just check everything in decent condition on amazon. When we sort it takes a volunteer about half an 8 hour day to sort through probably 2000 books. We sort once a week.
-- List the suckers. This literally takes a whole of 2 seconds per book and is so easy that even someone with very little computer savvy can do it. We don't list anything that's worth less than $1.50 -- this ensures we don't lose money but you can do a little math and set your own price point. We have a volunteer that lists for me -- once a week she spends about 2 hours and lists about 300 books. She also spends some of that time repricing.
-- We have a heat printer to keep costs down and shipping a single book takes about 15 seconds. That process is incredibly easy as well. I shipped about 50 books this morning an hour, I think.
Honestly, if you're looking to make the most money on these donations and are concerned about the resellers stepping on your profit, then this is the way to go.
We have 3 people that do this job. Each dedicates a couple / few hours a week to it. We probably sell 200 books a month and our PROFIT is usually around $2000 even in a bad month. I think once you give it a shot (and there's no harm in that -- starting slow and seeing if this is indeed a viable thing and worth your time) you'll see that when you're dealing with a non-profit with an over-abundance of books, it's the way to go if you're looking to get the most money.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:11 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I just wanted to give you an idea of how WE do it so that maybe you could see that even though this is an organization staffed by volunteers, you can do this too.
Here is our process, with a breakdown in time it takes to perform each task:
-- Sort books. Once you've been at it for a while you'll get a really good feel for what's "amazon-able" and what isn't. In the beginning, I'd advise not sorting them at all. Just check everything in decent condition on amazon. When we sort it takes a volunteer about half an 8 hour day to sort through probably 2000 books. We sort once a week.
-- List the suckers. This literally takes a whole of 2 seconds per book and is so easy that even someone with very little computer savvy can do it. We don't list anything that's worth less than $1.50 -- this ensures we don't lose money but you can do a little math and set your own price point. We have a volunteer that lists for me -- once a week she spends about 2 hours and lists about 300 books. She also spends some of that time repricing.
-- We have a heat printer to keep costs down and shipping a single book takes about 15 seconds. That process is incredibly easy as well. I shipped about 50 books this morning an hour, I think.
Honestly, if you're looking to make the most money on these donations and are concerned about the resellers stepping on your profit, then this is the way to go.
We have 3 people that do this job. Each dedicates a couple / few hours a week to it. We probably sell 200 books a month and our PROFIT is usually around $2000 even in a bad month. I think once you give it a shot (and there's no harm in that -- starting slow and seeing if this is indeed a viable thing and worth your time) you'll see that when you're dealing with a non-profit with an over-abundance of books, it's the way to go if you're looking to get the most money.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:11 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: @youandiandaflame
If I were to run this operation from the top that is exactly how I would do it.
I'm at the bottom.
At this point all I can do is try to give them a nudge by giving them an idea of what value they are sitting on.
It sounds like you have a fair amount of space to use a fair amount of equipment that was engineered into a smooth efficient process by somebody who spent serious time and thought on the project. We got none of that. In the meanwhile I will dream...
posted by Folk at 3:27 PM on April 22, 2013
If I were to run this operation from the top that is exactly how I would do it.
I'm at the bottom.
At this point all I can do is try to give them a nudge by giving them an idea of what value they are sitting on.
It sounds like you have a fair amount of space to use a fair amount of equipment that was engineered into a smooth efficient process by somebody who spent serious time and thought on the project. We got none of that. In the meanwhile I will dream...
posted by Folk at 3:27 PM on April 22, 2013
I'm not positive that we have the knowledge to set those metrics.
Romance novels - 50 cents. People buy these used by the boatload, read them, and then get rid of them. They are not valuable.
Outdated travel guides - 50 cents, tops.
Outdated other nonfiction - free unless it's very obviously collectible.
Just about anything in the public domain - $1. Worth nothing. Maybe charge up to $5 if it's a really beautiful old edition.
Old dimestore paperbacks - $1. If there is really anything worth $300 to be found here, let the pickers have fun with that.
Newer paperbacks in better condition - half list price.
Hardcover books where the title is now out in paperback (and it's not a rare first edition or signed or anything) - same price as you'd sell the paperback for. Nobody's going to pay extra for that.
Art books - worth looking up.
Stuff from academic presses that's not a textbook - worth looking up.
First editions and other rarities and things people collect - worth looking up.
Kids books and Cookbooks - not my area of expertise, though these also tend to not be all that valuable in my understanding.
All in all, the vast majority of books are just not that valuable. While you might find something that could go for $300 on eBay once in a blue moon, it's not worth scanning every book that comes into the store on the off chance that it could be worth that much.
When I did this in a charity bookshop, I spent far more time weeding out books we wouldn't even bother selling than I did trying to find books that might be worth $300.
posted by Sara C. at 3:33 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Romance novels - 50 cents. People buy these used by the boatload, read them, and then get rid of them. They are not valuable.
Outdated travel guides - 50 cents, tops.
Outdated other nonfiction - free unless it's very obviously collectible.
Just about anything in the public domain - $1. Worth nothing. Maybe charge up to $5 if it's a really beautiful old edition.
Old dimestore paperbacks - $1. If there is really anything worth $300 to be found here, let the pickers have fun with that.
Newer paperbacks in better condition - half list price.
Hardcover books where the title is now out in paperback (and it's not a rare first edition or signed or anything) - same price as you'd sell the paperback for. Nobody's going to pay extra for that.
Art books - worth looking up.
Stuff from academic presses that's not a textbook - worth looking up.
First editions and other rarities and things people collect - worth looking up.
Kids books and Cookbooks - not my area of expertise, though these also tend to not be all that valuable in my understanding.
All in all, the vast majority of books are just not that valuable. While you might find something that could go for $300 on eBay once in a blue moon, it's not worth scanning every book that comes into the store on the off chance that it could be worth that much.
When I did this in a charity bookshop, I spent far more time weeding out books we wouldn't even bother selling than I did trying to find books that might be worth $300.
posted by Sara C. at 3:33 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I have been the "The Book Pricer" person (in pre-internet days) and I have been the reselling "highway robber" and -- and your thinking about this is totally wrong. Your premise of "The store is losing money to these customers" could not be more off the mark. They are probably your best customers. +1 "I spent far more time weeding out books we wouldn't even bother selling than I did trying to find books that might be worth $300"...
The value of a book is not simply $X.
The value of a book in a store where I have to sift through dusty ex-bestsellers is not the same as the value of a book that I can have delivered to my home in a few mouse clicks. The resellers are adding value to the goods when they inventory them and make them easily available to people who do not have the inclination/ability/etc to rifle through stacks of used books until they find something they like.
"This book sells for $50 on biblio.com" means that that book sells for $50 on biblio.com, not that that book is worth $50.
A thrift store I go to, which is run entirely by volunteers and which funds a small rural hospital, started a thing last year where a volunteer is, unfortunately, looking up eBay prices for records. The records now have little notes stating eBay prices with shipping, and an "Our Price: $...!" somewhat lower, and the result is that the records sit there for months. Record resellers cross the place off their list, and nobody -- not the store, not the resellers, not people who like records -- is benefitting. I nearly never buy records but I enjoy browsing and it is still a strike against the store for me because same records on every visit = very boring. Cutting the odds of a "find" to zero will be obvious to all, and even the non-reselling customers will look elsewhere if you contract out cherry-picking. Make peace with your place in the retail food chain, and focus on turnover and volume -- that's where you can distinguish yourself from your competition and do a good job in your niche.
posted by kmennie at 4:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
The value of a book is not simply $X.
The value of a book in a store where I have to sift through dusty ex-bestsellers is not the same as the value of a book that I can have delivered to my home in a few mouse clicks. The resellers are adding value to the goods when they inventory them and make them easily available to people who do not have the inclination/ability/etc to rifle through stacks of used books until they find something they like.
"This book sells for $50 on biblio.com" means that that book sells for $50 on biblio.com, not that that book is worth $50.
A thrift store I go to, which is run entirely by volunteers and which funds a small rural hospital, started a thing last year where a volunteer is, unfortunately, looking up eBay prices for records. The records now have little notes stating eBay prices with shipping, and an "Our Price: $...!" somewhat lower, and the result is that the records sit there for months. Record resellers cross the place off their list, and nobody -- not the store, not the resellers, not people who like records -- is benefitting. I nearly never buy records but I enjoy browsing and it is still a strike against the store for me because same records on every visit = very boring. Cutting the odds of a "find" to zero will be obvious to all, and even the non-reselling customers will look elsewhere if you contract out cherry-picking. Make peace with your place in the retail food chain, and focus on turnover and volume -- that's where you can distinguish yourself from your competition and do a good job in your niche.
posted by kmennie at 4:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
Hmm. You're getting free books which you're then selling for $1 to $2. I'm not sure why you think of that as "no profit."
I've helped manage a used book and music store for over 10 years now, and can empathize with your feeling that you're letting good stuff go for too cheap. But we made our peace with the scanner people long ago; we're pretty knowledgeable about books but sometimes we miss stuff, and they find it, which keeps them coming back. We have people who make a decent 2nd income just from finds on our dollar and quarter shelves. We don't mind.
At this point all I can do is try to give them a nudge by giving them an idea of what value they are sitting on.
It's worth noting that you might be overestimating the profit margin on the books the scanner people are buying. Some of them set their cutoffs pretty low - that is, some consider a book they buy for $1 and sell for $5 worth the trouble, especially if they can eke out another buck or two profit from Amazon's set shipping charge. That stack of books they're buying may not actually be full of $30-50 gems, and may not be worth the time for a volunteer to bother with beyond the $1 or $2 of pure profit you're already getting from it.
But then again, it might be. There are scanner devices and monthly subscription charges that get you a quicker, easier way to check current resale values at places like Amazon. Or you can just enter the ISBN by hand at Bookfinder.com, which costs nothing beyond an internet connection and searches Amazon along with lots of other dealers who don't list at Amazon. Whoever you get to do it will quickly learn, as Sara C. noted above, that some kinds of books aren't worth scanning - hardback and paperback popular fiction that's more than a few months old is unlikely to contain many treasures, e.g.
The best way to "give them a nudge" is to get a person who's interested in books to start entering ISBNs at Bookfinder. After a week or so, depending on how smart they are, they'll start to get a good sense of what's valuable and what's a mere $1 to $2 book. But keep the warnings above in mind; unless you train someone to recognize the good stuff, raising your prices across the board will only result in tons of mediocre books sticking around forever. You don't have a lot of resources to train someone, so just start entering ISBNs at Bookfinder and set aside anything where the lowest price offered is, say, $10. After a few weeks of that, you might find you have only a tiny handful of books worth listing, or you may find you have dozens. That's data you can then show to the folks who run the store.
But yeah, that's your easiest, cheapest way to start the process and determine if it's worth investing more effort in your book sales.
(Side note: to address kmennie's point about thrift stores using eBay prices, I've noticed stores that do that tend to use the inflated "Buy It Now" prices on unsold items rather than the lower, more sane "sold" prices on completed auctions. That's a sure way to keep your stock on the shelves for months and months.)
posted by mediareport at 6:00 PM on April 22, 2013
I've helped manage a used book and music store for over 10 years now, and can empathize with your feeling that you're letting good stuff go for too cheap. But we made our peace with the scanner people long ago; we're pretty knowledgeable about books but sometimes we miss stuff, and they find it, which keeps them coming back. We have people who make a decent 2nd income just from finds on our dollar and quarter shelves. We don't mind.
At this point all I can do is try to give them a nudge by giving them an idea of what value they are sitting on.
It's worth noting that you might be overestimating the profit margin on the books the scanner people are buying. Some of them set their cutoffs pretty low - that is, some consider a book they buy for $1 and sell for $5 worth the trouble, especially if they can eke out another buck or two profit from Amazon's set shipping charge. That stack of books they're buying may not actually be full of $30-50 gems, and may not be worth the time for a volunteer to bother with beyond the $1 or $2 of pure profit you're already getting from it.
But then again, it might be. There are scanner devices and monthly subscription charges that get you a quicker, easier way to check current resale values at places like Amazon. Or you can just enter the ISBN by hand at Bookfinder.com, which costs nothing beyond an internet connection and searches Amazon along with lots of other dealers who don't list at Amazon. Whoever you get to do it will quickly learn, as Sara C. noted above, that some kinds of books aren't worth scanning - hardback and paperback popular fiction that's more than a few months old is unlikely to contain many treasures, e.g.
The best way to "give them a nudge" is to get a person who's interested in books to start entering ISBNs at Bookfinder. After a week or so, depending on how smart they are, they'll start to get a good sense of what's valuable and what's a mere $1 to $2 book. But keep the warnings above in mind; unless you train someone to recognize the good stuff, raising your prices across the board will only result in tons of mediocre books sticking around forever. You don't have a lot of resources to train someone, so just start entering ISBNs at Bookfinder and set aside anything where the lowest price offered is, say, $10. After a few weeks of that, you might find you have only a tiny handful of books worth listing, or you may find you have dozens. That's data you can then show to the folks who run the store.
But yeah, that's your easiest, cheapest way to start the process and determine if it's worth investing more effort in your book sales.
(Side note: to address kmennie's point about thrift stores using eBay prices, I've noticed stores that do that tend to use the inflated "Buy It Now" prices on unsold items rather than the lower, more sane "sold" prices on completed auctions. That's a sure way to keep your stock on the shelves for months and months.)
posted by mediareport at 6:00 PM on April 22, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for all this feedback!
So what if we learn to develop an eye and learn to pick out only the most interesting(read: resellable) books and dedicate a single shelf to them. Where they are marked at 20% of the price they are selling at.
If we are only picking out the books that are really worth something(>$20?) and still pricing them very low for the price they are going for, everyone should win. At that margin it shouldent effect their profits too much, there are limited crazy complicated pricing schemes to worry about, and it's limited extra labor.
Sara C, we get lots of junk too. 10-30% of our book donations go right back out the door.
posted by Folk at 8:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
So what if we learn to develop an eye and learn to pick out only the most interesting(read: resellable) books and dedicate a single shelf to them. Where they are marked at 20% of the price they are selling at.
If we are only picking out the books that are really worth something(>$20?) and still pricing them very low for the price they are going for, everyone should win. At that margin it shouldent effect their profits too much, there are limited crazy complicated pricing schemes to worry about, and it's limited extra labor.
Sara C, we get lots of junk too. 10-30% of our book donations go right back out the door.
posted by Folk at 8:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
I'm more of a personal collector than a scan-every-barcode-reseller but after a few years I've learned what kinds of things are worth picking up to sale or trade and what are only going to have value to me and my collection.
Based on that, there are a few things used bookstores can do to make me show up more often. Besides decent pricing (I'll never pay more than a $1 for a paperback) I'd LOVE a chance to pick through books before they hit the shelves. Maybe that's where you guys have an opportunity - one day a week, hold a pre-sale. People can pick through the bins of unsorted books in the back with the agreement that they'll pay double price on them. Anything really worth something will get picked up then (with increased revenue to you) and you can feel confident that you've gotten some extra value from those resell-able books.
posted by _DB_ at 1:19 PM on April 23, 2013
Based on that, there are a few things used bookstores can do to make me show up more often. Besides decent pricing (I'll never pay more than a $1 for a paperback) I'd LOVE a chance to pick through books before they hit the shelves. Maybe that's where you guys have an opportunity - one day a week, hold a pre-sale. People can pick through the bins of unsorted books in the back with the agreement that they'll pay double price on them. Anything really worth something will get picked up then (with increased revenue to you) and you can feel confident that you've gotten some extra value from those resell-able books.
posted by _DB_ at 1:19 PM on April 23, 2013
Could you put a limit on the number of books that can be purchased per shop visit? I don't know if this is very practical but it might discourage resellers.
posted by piyushnz at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2013
posted by piyushnz at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2013
I suggest you not do what piyushnz suggests; it's customer-unfriendly for no reason. Decide on a price you think is right - and remember you're making *pure profit* on the donated books you sell - and then try to be happy when the books go out the door, in small or large numbers.
posted by mediareport at 8:26 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mediareport at 8:26 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: When I originally wrote this question I thought I was asking "How do I quickly look up book prices with minimal fuss(specifically on Amazon)?" I was looking for answers in that vein and that is not what I got. Instead I got answers giving me totally different viewpoints for approaching the larger situation as well as alternate paths to solve my perceived problem. I didn't even get one answer about the Amazon API's like I was originally hoping for. Among everything else you let me think past my narrow categorization of resellers as "The Enemy".
You guys are amazing. You brought me out of my little cave and showed me the greater light. Thank you so very much.
posted by Folk at 7:29 AM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]
You guys are amazing. You brought me out of my little cave and showed me the greater light. Thank you so very much.
posted by Folk at 7:29 AM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]
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posted by Ideefixe at 1:06 PM on April 22, 2013