How can Amazon Marketplace sellers afford to sell paperbacks for one cent each if Amazon charges 44 cents to $1.23 per book closing costs, plus 15% commission–plus 99 cents per transaction for non-pro merchant sellers? I see that Amazon gives you $3.49 per book for standard shipping to cover shipping costs–is this where sellers make their money? Once you factor in the cost of envelopes, postage, and all the time and gas it would take to make these trips to the post office, how can this come out to be profitable?
I can easily see how it could be profitable, especially if I send your book by media mail (slow boat) for 89 cents!
And I don’t have to drive to the post office to mail stuff- this nice lady in a white truck comes to my house every day! And she mails all my stuff for me! 
Amazon gives a seller $2.26 for standard shipping. (They say they give a seller $3.49, but they then take back $1.23. Bookkeeping hijinks.)
A paperback can be shipped Media mail for $1.59. That gives you 67 cents on each sale. A volume mailer can qualify for lower rates, giving them a few more cents a sale.
Now, I do not believe any Sellers price all their stock at a penny. A larger Seller can buy a lot of a thousand books, sell 600 of them at a “reasonable” price, recouping their investment and making a profit, then sell the remaining 400 for a penny to cut their losses.
Any small Seller who tries to compete at the bottom with the big dogs is going to lose their shirt.
Ah, a real-life seller to ask…
The USPS site says media mail postage is $1.59 for packages up to one pound. How do you get the 89-cent rate? Do you just stick a bunch of stamps on the packages to add up to the media rate, or do you have a postage meter at home or something? Also, I thought you had to take packages to the post office to mail them, in this day and age of anthrax mail and letter bombs?
How does Amazon determine the closing costs?
And where are you getting these books from, anyway?
Between the labor of dealing with putting the packages together and the cost of the postage and envelope, minus how much the book cost you in the first place, how much profit would you say you end up making per hour/per book/whatever?
Forgive my naivete, I almost never send packages.
I almost forgot to mention, the numbers only work if you are an Amazon Pro Merchant ($40/month fee) because the .99 Listing Fee is waived for Pro Merchants.
If you are not a Pro Merchant, you will be losing at least 32 cents on every penny sale. More if you take the cost of the book and packing material in to account.
Much more profit than they would get by having the book sit there and not sell.
Book dealers buy books by the lotload. That includes hundreds of books purchased for no added cost to the ones that are truly valuable. Why not make a small amount of money on the ones that are essentially worthless?
Check these one cent dealers and see if they are in the process of builfing up a ratings history.
Seems pretty dumb to do it otherwise.
Sorry about the 89 cents figure, I actually pulled that out of my ass before checking… my very bad. We haven’t sold any for a penny yet, but we have sold some for less than a dollar.
Clearing a buck on a book I would otherwise throw away ain’t bad (if they are good enough to be sold to my local used book store, they aren’t still here!).
We do sell a ton of stuff, we do have a meter at home, and you can hand just about anything to your carrier, at least in my experience.