Wow, that was an unnecessarily obnoxious reply 
You asked why there isn’t a price crash, and we provided opinions.
Nevermind, you believe what you want. I’m outta here.
I’m an example of multiple reasons. First, if I ran out to buy a book as soon as it’s published, I’ll most likely want to keep it for more than 2 weeks. Maybe it’s a book that I think I will re-read or maybe I think that at least one of the other readers in my family will want it - but I’m going to keep it more than 2 weeks even if I finish it in a day. I did not buy most of my books when they were first published - I generally bought them from stores/websites that sold remainders. I might have gotten rid of those a couple of weeks after I finished reading them - but it would have because I coincidentally finished the book shortly before I was bringing a box to sell at the used bookstore. I don’t know of any used bookstores anymore, so now when I get rid of some of those old books that I still have, I tie them up and put them out with the trash for anyone to take. It has never been worth my time to bother with selling them on ebay or anywhere else where I would have to list and ship them individually.
(A) Selling books online is a pain the the ass
(B) There’s easier options for selling a book if that’s what you want to do
(C) Books don’t really cost enough to generally want to resell to recoup the cost anyway and, for those that do, see A & B
Trying to get money back from a prom dress or some other significantly priced one-use purchase, sure. Trying to squeeze $10 back out of a hardback book that you now have to hassle with packaging, taking to the post office and shipping… nah.
Right. @colinfred, we answered your question. No mystery here. Say thank you now.
I thought that can’t be right. Last time i did that (maybe ~10 years ago) it was free.
I checked… it’s 90p just to reserve a book at my local library, £3.00 to reserve a book
from a partner libfrary (in the SE), and £8.25 !! to reserve a book from any other library.
Damn !
I got the info from the local library’s website.
So “why aren’t prices being the way I think they should when people are going to act the way I think they do?”
Probably because you are wrong about the way people act. At the very least, there are not enough people who
A) Buy a book as soon as it comes out.
B) Sell it as soon as they’ve read it
C) List it on EBay, rather than taking it to a used book store or list it on Amazon
to generate enough listings on Ebay to force the price down.
You don’t make much money selling a book on ebay after you factor in the ebay fees and shipping fees. Its only a few dollars, and its not worth going to the post office for a lot of people.
This is correct. 20+ yrs ago I worked at a popular used bookstore in Maryland (not Wonderbooks) and we did not sell books through ebay-- mostly Amazon and at the stores. People would come in with advance copies to sell to us, which we would resell, and sometimes people would bring in boxes of new books and we would sell those on Amazon, but at more than half cover price (I can’t remember the pricing). EDIT: I think pricing was based on the lowest used price on Amazon, then like $.50 less, which would last a few hours until the other sellers changed their prices. Shipping regular 8vo sized books was $3.50 in a padded mailer. We also sold through ABE and others I can’t remember.
When we would buy estate libraries or when people were moving, downsizing, etc., there would be posters or collectibles lumped as part of those sales. That stuff went on ebay.
Is that a paperback or hardback?
Americans have the advantage in selling books that USPS has a special rate. I sold used craft books for several years and it would have been impossible without book rates
This is what the media rate [book rate] is now:
The 2024 USPS Media Mail rates are as follows:
- 1 lb: $4.63
- 2 lb: $5.38
- 3 lb: $6.13
- 4 lb: $6.88
- 5 lb: $7.63
- 6 lb: $8.38
- 7 lb: $9.13
- 8 lb: $9.88
- 9 lb: $10.63
- 10 lb: $11.38
Many paperbacks will go for $4.63, most hard bound (but not those glorious huge Diana Gabaldon Outlander tomes!) will go for $5.38.
My sister and I send favorite author new releases back and forth but it doesn’t make sense effort-for-$ return-wise to do on e-bay or FB marketplace with strangers. Thats what Half Price Books or used bookstores is for.
Most of my books were staple bound paperback, so came in under 12 oz. and would cost the same as if I sent an empty mailer. I register hardback books as much heavier, but hardback craft books are printed on glossy paper, so are much heavier than regular hardbacks of the same size
For years, media rate was $3.99 for almost any weight (there must have been an upper limit, but I never hit it). And I mailed some heavy books! Those days are gone. Sigh
As long as the supply is somewhat limited and the product is not perishable, the price tends to rise to whatever the market will bear.
With secondhand books where the title is still in print, buyers are typically looking for a ‘bargain’ that is in the shape of a price cut - they’re looking to buy it cheaper than full price, not get it for next to nothing.
Sellers could price their copy at a few pennies cheaper than the competition, and in some cases this can lead to a sort of feedback thing where they both race each other to the lowest possible price (sometimes that happens on Amazon as a result of automation, or at least, it did), but the other thing sellers can do is to just price their copy at about the same as the competition, and then just wait. It will sell eventually. Unless there is a huge overabundance of competition, there’s no particular reason to compete.
Your use of “£” leads me to presume you’re in the UK? I suspect folks referring to “inter-library loan” are US based. I’m thinking there are some significant differences between the US and UK in regards to such things.
To state the obvious that I don’t think I’ve seen (or not explicitly spelled out) is that many people buy books because they want a physical copy of that book on their bookshelf. They have a collection of books.
That’s why they buy a physical book and hold onto it, because a book is more than just its first reading. You might get a second or third reading from it. Parts of your collection might be borrowed or lent out to friends, so it’s part of a broader collection. The pleasure of reading a book isn’t just pouring the content into your brain and tossing it like a web page. It’s reading, re-reading, having, owning, sharing, sometimes the physical experience of seeing and touching and dusting and reorganizing and re-experiencing the memories that the item brings.
If not for those things, you’d just go to the library or buy an e-book. There are specific reasons people choose to purchase instead.
Again, right in the OP I acknowledged there were chocolate likers and vanilla likers and I was asking about the behaviour of chocolate likers. You do not need to keep pointing out that some people like vanilla.
Good answer by @Mangetout
But it’s not like two different groups of people who like two different products. It’s one group all buying the same product and interacting with it in different ways. The number of “vanilla” people who buy a book and keep it directly affects the quantity, and thus price, of used books on the market for “chocolate” people. “Because many/most people buy books to retain” is a legitimate and significant part of the answer you’re asking for. Most books never enter the second-hand market so there is never sufficient saturation to drive prices down on popular recent titles. Prices go down when the book has been out long enough for enough copies to enter the market, both from the trickle of “chocolate” people and because enough “vanilla” people have finally made room and offloaded their now old books. It’s all connected.
Once more us butterscotch aficionados are overlooked.