UKC

Does anyone have any experience of the second hand book market?

Specifically out of print art books being sold on places like Amazon, and the seemingly ridiculously high prices that some books are being bought and sold for.

I appreciate that something is worth what someone will pay for it but I am trying to understand the process of pricing up a book that there may be very little selling history for (i.e. not something like Extreme Rock which probably has enough selling history for a price to be pitched fairly accurate), is it case of putting something up for a certain price and hoping it sells? Perhaps an inflated price is designed to make something look desirable? Or maybe some of the big second book sellers just randomly generate big number prices? Any insight much appreciated.

BTW I'm not planning on selling anything but wondered if anyone dabbled in this and knows something about the market.

In reply to Escher: I don't claim to know anything in particular about the secondhand book market other than being a consumer but I have found this website very useful for comparing prices and finding stuff (Amazon powered of course):

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/?cm_sp=brcr-_-bdp-_-home

In reply to Escher:

I worked at Waterstones for a while & there was a tracking service that we'd use to find out of print books for customers. Can't for the life of me remember what it was called (ask at a Waterstones), but it normally ended up cheaper than the Amazon stuff.

In reply to Escher: Thanks both, will take a look. And I assume the system you were talking about is the Nielsen Database?

In reply to Escher:

What always puzzles me (off topic, sorry) is the number of books on Amazon for 1p. I've bought a few climbing books for that recently (+£2.80 postage, to be sure).

What's that about, then? The economics of it puzzle me.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: It's a bit bizarre. E.g.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/9385986/Robo-pricing-risks-Ama...

In reply to Escher:

The pricing on Amazon can be all over the place. I suspect a lot of the very high priced items just don't sell. I used to make a few quid by buying books from charity shops and selling them on Amazon. The trick was working out what was worth more than the shop was asking, this was in the days before I had a smartphone. Best I did was buying a book for £4 and selling for £40, mostly it was just doubling my money. Never made much, just did it because I enjoyed it.

In reply to The New NickB:

Don't let Offwidth know!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Too late. Its good to know who exactly finds ripping off charity shops good fun or for that matter removing the possible bargain for someone who can't afford to pay a big tip to make the price closer to the market price.

In reply to Offwidth:

Get over yourself, nobody got ripped off including the charity shop. I even spoke to the shop manager and explained how they could make more money, but it seems that for some reason they were not allowed to do it. They were happy for me to pay my money and take the risk. They were equally happy when I donated lots of books, which I regularly did.

In reply to The New NickB: ".. The trick was working out what was worth more than the shop was asking"

thx for letting us know the secret to your scheme

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

But I haven't told you the secret, and now we all have access to Amazon Marketplace on our phones, knowing the secret isn't really necessary.

In reply to Offwidth:

Actually, thinking about it, even if I hadn't a) been totally open about it; advising them on how to maximise the value of their stock; and c) making regular donations and buying lots of books that I wasn't selling on. I still wasn't ripping off anyone. Items were put up for sale, they were bought and in some cases sold on for more than originally paid for them.

In reply to Escher: ive used amazon to sell on books. Most of them were priced at a penny & i only made 30p on them after all the charges & p+p. I did sell one book for £30 & another for £38 on there but i dont have any more that are rare. I also used amazon & abe books to value books when i was running the charity shop. I then priced them accordingly and sold them in the for £50 each! Most large chain charity shops dont have the facilities to store the online stock in their shops while its on the internet so dont sell that way. The independent shops may do better with that. I do know oxfam has an ebay shop that they use to sell donations. Unfortunately, a lot of the charity shops have managers who dont have the time to search the internet to value a lot of the donations.

In reply to Offwidth: Don't be so ridiculous. If charity shops undervalue books that is their loss and I don't have a problem with people profiteering if they can live with it. Good ones wised up years ago, for example Oxfam have specialist book and vintage clothes shops, selling at market values.

Similarly we offload a lot of stuff through Freegle and I suspect a lot of people use that as a source of profit. Good to see the animal spirits are alive.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: Back on thread - isn't this because Amazon whacked up their commission recently? So maybe it's a way for sellers to couteract that? Although presumably A could start taking a cut of the postage price?

The other thing I've read is that sellers always undercut each other by tiny margins so the logical outcome of a race to the bottom is 1p prices.

I recently bought a coffee grinder on Amazon for £38 and it's already down to £23. Maybe more sellers coming into that market? Not sure.

In reply to Stig:

1p pricing has been very common on Amazon Marketplace for years, must be 6/7 years since I was a regular user.

In reply to Stig:

The key words here are "if they can live with it"

Personally I find profiteering out of charity shops distasteful. It's against the whole ethos of charity. If you as a knowledgeable customer see something that has been obviously heavily undervalued in such a shop, don't you think you have a moral duty to tip them off rather than attempt to profit from their error? Most charities are heavily underfunded, rely on volunteers to run their shops and can't afford to pay experts to price everything that passes through them.

In reply to Trangia:

So surely it's a good thing that NickB patronises the charity store purchasing the book for the advertised price allowing them to generate income?

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I've always assumed that it didn't really cost them £2.80 p&p.

In reply to TMM:

Turn over is certainly important in most charity shops, so lots of sales and lots of new free stock, both of which I provided. Offwidth seems to have taken particular exception to the fact that I wasn't really in it for the money, if I had been in it for the money, I would only have bought books to sell on and wouldn't have donated back large numbers of books.

In reply to The New NickB:

I objected to your first post where you said:

"I used to make a few quid by buying books from charity shops and selling them on Amazon. The trick was working out what was worth more than the shop was asking, this was in the days before I had a smartphone. Best I did was buying a book for £4 and selling for £40, mostly it was just doubling my money. Never made much, just did it because I enjoyed it."

There was no indication in that first post of your donations or that the shop knew and were happy. All this repeat posting makes you look very unconvinced in your own morality.

In reply to The New NickB:

Just to keep the argument spicy, never mind the charity shops, isn't there an ethical problem with using a company that doesn't pay its taxes?

In reply to Offwidth:

I didn't know the self appointed moral police would be along, so I did not bother to point out how my already perfectly reasonable activity was extra reasonable, to the point of generosity.

My three responses on the subject were firstly to provide further information, secondly to say just a minute, why should have to defend what is perfectly reasonable behaviour and my third was in direct response to a comment made by another contributor. The idea that repeat posting suggests I am unconvinced by my own morality is utterly stupid and self serving.

In reply to nufkin:

You are quite right. I have some other issues with Amazon that mean I havent used them for years anyway, but it is so difficult to keep up with who is paying their fair share of taxes. Or were you talking about the charity shops

In reply to Trangia:


No I don't. In the case of charity shops, the charity in question is engaging in the market for the purposes of fund raising. Hence they are, and should be playing by the rules of the market. Smart charities employ people to put in place mechanisms to filter the donations and price accordingly so that they maximise revenue.

AS a customer one has no obligation to the charity other than to purchase the goods at the stated price. It is a purely market transaction. If you were to say stealing from charity shops is ok that would be a completely different moral proposition.

Furthermore, there is an argument to be had that other participants in local markets, ie high streets, don't view charity shops in anything like the benign manner you suggest. Charities don't pay the same business rates for example and are potentially undercutting commercial shops.

AS to your point that 'most charities are underfunded' - I very much doubt that is true, particularly those that have a trading arm.

In reply to Stig:

There you go. I see the market as a neccesary evil and support regulation and intervention at times to ensure it behaves fairly and to suit societies needs. A real free market might drive out many smaller providers as big companies could just under-sell at a loss until the competition has gone. A less than free market we see sometimes is involved in price fixing in cartels.

As such, market interventions such as reduced rates for charity shops are great news for me. I just wish councils could extend more support to small independants compared to the chains. It also fills the high street in difficult times as boarded up shops are more of a threat to the independant than being undercut on second-hand tat: a run-down atmosphere does drive customers away. I'd add the local shops where I live don't all dislike the charity shops either. They all work together (and defeated the local councils attempt to force local parking charges).

It's cute you miss the distinction between our moral point and a legal one (of course there is no financial obligation to pay more than the stated price, nothing stops you from doing this other than yourself). Its also cute you think we all put charities on a pedestal: I'd certainly apply the same moral standards to them, so for instance would see mismangement as far more morally serious than the same in a limited company.

In reply to Escher:

Just been looking on the web regarding a couple of wonderful early 1900's engineering books I'd been given from my late great uncle's collection by my dad's cousins - both of whom are in their 80's.

Turns out the 2 volumes are worth a few pounds - and a copy is in the V&A museum.

Modern Power Generators by James Weir French -- published in 1908. They have a number of beautifully drawn 'pop up and pull out' sectional illustrations including a steam locomotive.

They are wonderful things and they give me hours of enjoyment. Mine are definitely not for sale!