what is it about this magic $4 price nowadays? I mean, hey, I love it and am in danger of running out of bookshelves. Still, inquiring minds do want to know. Why $4? Why not $3.5? Why not $5.12?
$0.01 is the lowest price an Amazon merchant can sell an item for and $3.99 is the allowance Amazon provides for standard shipping. It’s the lowest price you can sell a book for on the Amazon Marketplace.
The seller pays fees to Amazon out of that $4.00 and must also pay for shipping the book, so most sellers can’t make a profit selling a book for a penny. Only high-volume, professional sellers (who pay lower fees to Amazon than non-pro sellers) can make money this way. The rest haven’t figured out that they’re losing money on these sales.
Oh, you can ship a paperback via media mail for less than $3.99. And if you’re buying used books from Amazon, you have a bunch of free book-sized envelopes to use. More importantly, you’ll get the things out of the house.
Amazon charges fees, which eat into your profit.
For a non-professional seller:
$0.01 + $3.99 = $4.00
- $0.99 (Fixed Closing Fee)
- $1.35 (Variable Closing Fee for books)
- $0.00 (15% Referral Fee for books) - negligible in this case
$1.66
Media Mail is cheap, but it’s not free and books are heavy. The current rate for the first pound is $2.41. You’re losing money on every sale.
Professional sellers don’t pay the fixed closing fee, so there’s a bit more money to be made and, presumably, they have more efficient operations so they can make a profit with sufficient volume. They had better have some volume because they pay $39.99 per month for the privilege of selling on Amazon.
Amateur sellers who sell books for a penny on Amazon are basically giving the books away. Pros who do it are counting on high volume to make it worth their while.
Most used books are hardly worth taking to a used book store, if you’re thinking about getting money for the. The main reason to sell used books is to get rid of them. You can sell them, or pitch them, or donate them. If you can sell them, at least you get some money out of the deal.