Aviation books – where to sell?

Thank you, darnsarf, I’ll take a look at that site. But I should have added, I wouldn’t have gone to 68 € for the item even if I’d had the software to compete on even terms with the other bidder – not without having had the chance to inspect the entries in the log book, which illustrates another downside of buying through media such as eBay – particularly as I’d have been buying blind vis a vis postage!

Ebay introduced a free postage rule for some categories, one of which was media which includes CD’s and DVD’s.
Their reasoning was that if you buy a CD from one of the major sites like Play.com or direct from Amazon the item is post free so Ebay reckoned that Ebay sellers should be compelled to compete with the postage terms offered by the big web merchants.
I presume Ebay thought this would result in an overall increase in sales so they could net a nice potful of fees with no thought for the poor seller (private or business) who may well land up out of pocket if the item sold for a very low amount.
Amazon commission fees are huge. I couldn’t even contemplate selling new diecast etc on Amazon as with standard model and toy trade profit margins I would be left with even less profit than the tiny amount I would make selling new items through Ebay.

I didn’t get it – the bid price jumped from 20€ to 68€ in the last three seconds and I don’t have the sotware to compete on those terms

Try www.gixen.com, it’s free and works well in my experience

Is this a consequence of financial clout and/or greed on the part of eBay and Amazon or the price that all sellers now have to pay in consequence of those who sold £10 items for £1 and then charged £10 for postage that actually cost £1, in order to reduce the fees payable on sale?

As an interesting aside, yesterday on the eBay France I was bidding for a log book (I didn’t get it – the bid price jumped from 20€ to 68€ in the last three seconds and I don’t have the sotware to compete on those terms) where the seller declined to quote a price for postage, simply saying that the buyer would be informed at the conclusion of the sale!

p.s. greetings, Chumpy, from a ‘johnny foreigner’!

Amazon is even worse, as a seller you get an allowance of £2.80 whatever the weight, so a package of over 1kg sent via Royal Mail (£7.61) will lose you almost a fiver off the selling price even before they take their cut..

Ahh the thorny subject of ebay fee’s etc!

Ebay impose a max figure of £3.25 that can be charged for UK postage and packing if you list the ‘item’ in the Books and Magazines category. As far as I know this is the same for Biz and private sellers.

Fine if the book is a slim volume weighing up to about 750 grms…over this you have to take a hit as £3.25 will not cover Royal Mail postage prices for a large and hefty book. There is no upper limit for overseas postage, so you can charge ‘johnny foreigner’ what you like!

One way around this is to list the ‘item’ in the Collectables-Transport-Aeronautica category…no max UK postage limit on this. (Many books to be found here).

A quick look through the appropriate ebay category suggests that Private sellers can charge reasonable postage with no problems.
I suspect business sellers have to offer free P+P, so should factor it in to the asking price.Bruce

I don’t understand why Ebay feel it is fair game to charge business sellers higher fees and force them to stand the postage costs on some items.
It could be argued that it is discriminatory ie Ebay are discriminating against sellers who run a business by charging them higher fees and that it may even be unlawful under the Equalty Act 2010 which is very far ranging and basically says everyone should be treated the same. Just need the lottery win to be able to afford the legal fees to challenge Ebay on this one.

May i suggest that you list them on here, and anyone who wants them can pick them up from you, otherwise for a bulk sale use a courier. to give a rough idea of prices, try bookfinder.com. As has been said, Amazon take a hefty slice and you take your chances on evilbay, although I never personally have han a problem -on 10 yrs or so of selling-. An aerojumble would be your best bet, although you have to factor in other costs, but it is a good day out
P.S. Ebay have a free listing weekend as we speak.
.

Interesting, that. I wonder what would have happened if you’d secured the book for £4.20 and then refused to pay more than £7.45 in total, saying that you’d report the matter to eBay if the seller refused to complete the transaction on those terms. Would eBay have supported the seller, saying that their quoted postal charge of £3.25 was only “recommendatory”, or ruled that the seller could not circumnavigate that, by quoting his own, higher postage charges, and required the seller to complete the transaction for a total of £7.45?

I am pretty certain that Ebay would honour the originally quoted postage cost even though in the case of doubt one should clarify with the seller before bidding. The seller shouldn’t get away with imposing his own (inflated) postage costs, if the ‘official’ note above shows less. Over here you wouldn’t get away with it, because Ebay prefers DHL, who partner the post office on parcel logistics.

I personally have some 120 books with Amazon, some aviation, which I find much less time-consuming and much more convenient. As long as your book in listed in their database you simply insert the ISBN number and they provide an illustration. Should the illustration of the cover or dustjacket be different to yours, you state it in your description. There seems to be no time-limit, and I choose my price (including their chunk, plus a small amount to cover the difference between what they pay you for postage and what you actually fork out). This precludes that you either sell your book at the end of the ‘other’ auction for 20P, or not at all, leaving you with costs for the insertion and costs for the re-insertion. Furthermore, I can increase or reduce my asking price whenever I want. I can check what the competition is asking and juggle my price accordingly. For example I have Jean Batten’s ‘Alone in the Sky’ for some astronomical amount, simply because she endorsed it, and I will enclose a photo I took of her doing so (when and where was that then…?!). A sale is received via email, upon which I go into my account to retrieve the address. I have to ship within 2 working days, which I seem to have managed to date.
If you need to make room quickly at whatever cost then A is not for you. I have four large stacks of books waiting for buyers, but strangely enough, the bookshelves are yet again full!

Hope this helps.
brgds
b_d
p.s. There’s also Abe Books for consideration , but I have no experience with them

Interesting, that. I wonder what would have happened if you’d secured the book for £4.20 and then refused to pay more than £7.45 in total, saying that you’d report the matter to eBay if the seller refused to complete the transaction on those terms. Would eBay have supported the seller, saying that their quoted postal charge of £3.25 was only “recommendatory”, or ruled that the seller could not circumnavigate that, by quoting his own, higher postage charges, and required the seller to complete the transaction for a total of £7.45?

A quick look through the appropriate ebay category suggests that Private sellers can charge reasonable postage with no problems.

I suspect business sellers have to offer free P+P, so should factor it in to the asking price.

Bruce

I bid on a book on Ebay yesterday (it would normally sell for £10 to £12 in that condition – ie: ‘like new’). At the top of the desription on the official ‘postage costs’ section it said UK postage was £3.25. Later on I noticed the seller had a line at the bottom of his desrciption which said:

Airmail £16.00
UK £10.00

When I queried this he said I could have it for £6.00 postage! My max bid was then limited to £4.00 as I wanted my overall costs to be no more than £10 – it would have been £7.00 with the lower postage costs. Somebody else then won the auction at £4.20 – for a book which should really sell for three times that amount, hmmm!

Darn,
Might I suggest you ofer a service whereby you e-mail potential punters when new books are listed?

John,
Thanks for the suggestion, I haven’t been doing this long enough to have amassed a list of ‘potential punters’ so for now I am just using Twitter to announce new titles (@booksworthbuyin). The website does have a facility for interested visitors to register their details, including email addresses, so I’ll look at making that more prominent.

www.booksworthbuying.com

Darn,

Might I suggest you ofer a service whereby you e-mail potential punters when new books are listed?

Cheers,

John

If you can provide a list of titles and their condition I’ll consider making an offer but, as was wisely pointed out in post #3, it will be subject to my being able to make a profit on any titles I decide to sell on. Although I have my own website most of my sales are via Amazon (boo!) and the fact is they do take a very large chunk of the selling price.

www.booksworthbuying.com

Merlin70..

PM sent…

Regards;
Steve

Why don’t you list them here and see if anyone wants to swop books?

A quick look through the appropriate ebay category suggests that Private sellers can charge reasonable postage with no problems.

I suspect business sellers have to offer free P+P, so should factor it in to the asking price.

Bruce

Avion Ancien summed up the dealer situation pretty well but selling to a dealer does give you a lump of money in one go for minimal effort.
I think you will find that Ebay expect you to send books post free in the UK so you need to add the postage costs to the selling price which makes the price less attractive to buyers AND you have to pay commission on the whole selling price. In categories where you add the postage after the selling price the postage element isn’t subject to Ebay sellers fees.
Listing books on Ebay is hard work and there is always the risk of selling the best stuff and getting stuck with the less desirable items which you will still have to store or maybe even give away or dump if you want the space back.
If you go to auction you need to be careful about costs. Some auctioneers charge to list the item in the catalogue then charge you a commission fee based on the selling price which I believe may also subject to VAT and then some also charge the buyer a premium on top of the hammer price as well.
The aerojumble suggestion is also an option but you have to look at table rent, cost of your petrol and the work involved in setting up and running the stall which, realistically needs 2 people to cover each other for getting food and coffee and trips to the loo.
All have advantages and disadvantages. You just have to weigh up which way you feel is best for you.

I’m considering going through the same exercise. When we moved here 10 years ago, they all went on shelves, and most have stayed there, untouched in that time.

Time to free up some space I reckon.

Bruce

The Aviation Book Shop buy used books. 😉