Lessons Learned from Selling $600 of Used Books in 6 Hours

I've been following ebay for a few months now to see what sells and gets a lot of bids. This guy (see link below) sells cameras just like a zillion others on ebay. The difference between him and the others is that he always bundles his cameras with every accessory imaginable. Many of these accessories are relatively inexpensive items (e.g., cheapo memory stick, cheapo tripod, etc.)

Follow his auctions an you will see that he routinely generates a large number of bids. It makes sense... Do people who can afford a $3500 camera really want to individually shop for 15 different accessories for their new toy? No Way! They want a turn key solution in a box and they want it quick.

> Since selling used stuff is sometimes a
> topic on this board, I thought I'd share
> techniques I used in my Moving Sale the
> other day. The techniques could apply for
> many different items besides books.

> I'll be moving in a month, and remembered
> that the last time I moved, my boxes of
> books and papers took up just about as much
> space in the truck as furniture and took
> more time to load and unload. So I thought
> I'd try to sell as many books as possible
> that I will probably never look at again, no
> matter how much I might have enjoyed them.

> At first, I tried selling the books on
> Amazon.com. This could work well if I had
> more time. But it was really time-consuming
> to enter all the books into their system and
> figure out how to rate their condition and
> how to price them. Some books have just
> about no value there because there are too
> many copies already for sale there at a low
> price. I sold five books overnight on
> Amazon.

> Then I had the brainstorm of running a
> bargain book sale for subscribers of my
> weekly email newsletter. This is what moved
> $600 of books in 6 hours. Here's what I did.

> I classified the books topically into
> "Bundles" and gave each grouping
> of 6-10 books a catchy yet descriptive name,
> such as "The Branding Bundle,"
> "The Web Business Bundle" or
> "The Inner Creativity Bundle."
> Then I rounded off the estimated resale
> value of the books and added a shipping
> price, also in a round number.

> Each bundle contained one or two items that
> would probably not be salable on their own,
> but added something to the value of the
> overall group.

> The bundles began going within the hour! I
> posted "sold" signs as quickly as
> I could, which seemed to make the remaining
> bundles go even faster. A few buyers bought
> several bundles. One subscriber in England
> even called a friend of hers in Switzerland
> to tell her to go look at what was still
> available, and the friend quickly bought a
> bundle. So that my west coast subscribers
> wouldn't feel they missed all the great
> opportunities, I added some more bundles to
> the site late in the morning.

> (By the way, I've added a few more Bundles
> this morning, so there's still good stuff
> available.)

> Lessons:

> 1. Bundle related items together to move a
> lot of merchandise in a small amount of
> time, including items that wouldn't be of
> much interest on their own.

> 2. Name the bundles.

> 3. Letting people know in real time that
> things are going quickly quickens the sales
> pace.

> 4. Tap your subscriber base, as they have
> already developed trust in you. (One buyer
> explicitly mentioned this as a factor in her
> purchase.)

> 5. Make the process fun and easy. People
> didn't have to fill out any online forms,
> just email me to reserve their bundle, then
> I arranged payment through the method
> easiest for them.

> Good luck with YOUR moving sale!

> Marcia Yudkin




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