Amazon is becoming a hemorrhoid.
I spend more time jousting with these idiots & their bureaucracy than I do filling orders.
I’ve never been successful on Ebay.
Are there other good alternatives for selling used books online?
I dropped in here, assuming you meant buying stuff on Amazon, Since their union-busting efforts, we’ve been buying directly from the manufacturers of the items we need.
But selling books? I’ve had great luck, during the pandemic, selling to local used bookstores. Some of them are selling so well, they need product.
What you can do it get software which can list on multiple sites (these as well as Amazon and eBay) such as:
Do those accommodate very small sellers?
Just a few hundred volumes total?
AbeBooks is an Amazon subsidiary.
Yes, all three sites accommodate very small sellers. But look at the fees:
https://www.abebooks.com/docs/Sell/fees.shtml
https://www.alibris.com/sellers/program-fees
So all three sites charge commissions. Besides this Alibris has a $19.99 annual fee and Abebooks has a $25 minimum monthly listing fee for up to 500 books and $37 minimum monthly listing fee for 501 to $4000 books.
Overall Amazon and eBay are probably the best selling venues (eBay more for collectible books), then Abebooks then Biblio and Alibris.
If you sell on multiple sites then you really should use a database to multi-list. Besides the subscription Booktrakker I mentioned Abebooks has free Homebase:
https://www.abebooks.com/homebase/software-inventory-management-system-catalog/
Or do a Google search for other options:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bookselling+software
But overall there is a vast over-supply of common books available for sale and you can only sell these at prices so low it’s not worth doing.
PS, Dewey: while it is true Abebooks is an Amazon subsidiary it operates independently (and is headquartered in Canada).
I am not a registered member, so I don’t know about their fees. I would assume they are comparable to the other options already mentioned, but… one way to find out for sure.
Seconding looking for used bookstores in your area, they’ll be geared toward buying small amounts at a time. For example, this store in Manassas has plastic bins similar to what the Postal Service uses; anyone with books to sell goes up to the counter and is allowed to fill up to four of these bins. The customer then receives a printed four-letter code word and there’s a monitor on the wall above the selling counter which keeps track of when all the bins belonging to each code word have been processed. The customer then returns to the counter for their store credit and/or cash, depending on what the customer opts for. Credit is always higher than cash payment.
ViaLibri searches viaLibri searches for old and rare books offered on 36 different multi-dealer websites [like Abebooks, Biblio…] and over 100 individual dealer websites. 100 individual websites is a trivial number; the OP would not find it useful to list there.
PS. If someone here just wants to sell already-read books so they can buy additional books they might consider swapping them instead, for example at:
We help avid readers share their books online.
- It’s easy: List books you’d like to swap with other club members.
- Once a book is requested, mail it to the club member.
- In return, you may choose from 1,149,060 available books!
- You pay postage for the books you send out; the books you receive come to you postage-paid.
- Books you request are yours to keep, or swap again!
We’re NOT just Paperback Books ! Enjoy trading Hardbacks, Audio Books, Textbooks and more.
Biblio looks good.
Which rate package seems best?
I’m looking art the “no fee” option.
BTW–a new hassle today.
Amazon thing that a biography of a doctor from the 1920s is somehow connected to the NFL ditching the Native American stuff, and has banned the book.
Are they all crazy?