# How Can Amazon Vendors Sell Books for Only 1 Cent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-amazon-vendors-sell-books-for-only-1-cent/271345 "2004-10-27T00:59:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-amazon-vendors-sell-books-for-only-1-cent/271345/21 "2010-10-30T10:55:37Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Even if they don’t have such a system, if they sell a lot of books, the costs of the hardback will be offset by the profit on the paperbacks. > > If you don’t find that to be a satisfactory explanation, then yours doesn’t work either. The only thing that matters is whether they get a lower rate at all, not that they pay an average, as that would be a higher price on the paperbacks. But the price is not necessarily going to be higher on the paperbacks, because the prices are set by weight band, not simply the weight. [This is the discount system I mentioned](http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?mediaId=52500704&catId=600105). Note that one price covers a big weight band, e.g. 251g-500g. Let’s say the average paperback I’m selling weighs about 300g, and the average hardback weighs 1200g. Even if I sent out one hardback for every five paperbacks, the average weight would still be (300 x 5 + 1200)/6 = 450g, which is still in the same weight band. So all my packages, including the light paperbacks, are still charged at the same price. I assume that the one-penny sellers adjust their stock so that the vast majority of their sales are lightweight paperbacks, which allows them to sell even giant doorstop volumes without losing money on them. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-amazon-vendors-sell-books-for-only-1-cent/271345/22 "2010-10-30T16:08:31Z")
Other factors that may be at play: Sales on Amazon (at a penny or otherwise) may not be the entirety of the seller’s business (slipping a sales brochure or leaflet in with the book might make it part of their promotional mailshot). Not sure if the Amazon T&Cs permit sellers to capture customer addresses for future mailshots, additionally, but if they do, that could be another one. Postal discounts might be dependent upon volume - therefore it might be worth their while having a load of low-profit consignments going out in order to bulk up the numbers and achieve a price breakpoint with their courier ---
**Author:** ![AmunRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AmunRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmunRa)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-amazon-vendors-sell-books-for-only-1-cent/271345/23 "2010-10-30T18:00:18Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Other factors that may be at play: > > Sales on Amazon (at a penny or otherwise) may not be the entirety of the seller’s business (slipping a sales brochure or leaflet in with the book might make it part of their promotional mailshot). > Not sure if the Amazon T&Cs permit sellers to capture customer addresses for future mailshots, additionally, but if they do, that could be another one. I don’t know about this. I buy lots of penny books from Amazon, and I’ve never gotten a sales brochure with them. And if I ever got a bulk mailer that could be traced back to an Amazon seller using data collected from sales you can bet I would be complaining to Amazon about it, and not buying from Amazon anymore if they didn’t do anything about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-amazon-vendors-sell-books-for-only-1-cent/271345.md?page=1)