Guess the market is quite good after all 2 2

[1Cool]

11 minutes ago, october said:

But that's exactly how you should be looking at it. It's what you are making per hour of work. Below a certain threshold it's not worth the time spent, unless someone considers it fun.  

I don't count the time to get the books since i find that portion of the business very fun.  The grading, scanning, posting and shipping is less fun so I do try to set a minimum price per book that i want to achieve. 

[Aweandlorder]

3 hours ago, october said:

But that's exactly how you should be looking at it. It's what you are making per hour of work. Below a certain threshold it's not worth the time spent, unless someone considers it fun.  

I think u missed my point. 
u can’t say that packing one book equals the same time u pack 10 30 or 100 books. 1-5 books takes 5 minutes. 10-20 may take 15 minutes and so forth and so on

the correct way to look at it is how much time you dedicate to comics a day in relation to your income from them

You should consider allotting a certain amount of hours a week to make a certain amount of money, is the proper way to look at it.

but wait there’s more......

What about the stock you hold onto for the long run that you’ll cash in when retire?

does that factor in the relation of the hours you put into your work?

as you can see, it’s silly to look at it as amount of time per packing you spend on a single transaction when there’s a whole bunch of other variable involved. 

let’s just say: work your pace and profit AS MUCH AS YOU CAN in the process

[Aweandlorder]

3 hours ago, 1Cool said:

After looking over a ongoing sales thread which is selling $5 books - do you let me know a few books you bought for basically nothing and were able to sell for $5 plus $5 shipping.  I sell some of those type of books abut I'm wondering what type of books you get people to bite on.  Perfectly ok if you don't want to - I'm just curious.

Sure. Here’s how I work it

i have a long box which has random books, the runs I usually keep separate unless there are several big books there which I send to grade... the odd ones I price out based on lowest price offered. Vfnm Books like bronze/copper x men, asm, hulk u can easily price at 5+5. Same goes with not so common variants that don’t really have much hype. 
bronze marvel in fine-vf fall into that category as well. I move tons of 5$ tpb on amazon as well. Tons. Amazon is much easier to work with tho since they have a ranking system that works wonders and I can tell u by a books ranking just how quickly it will move

[Aweandlorder]

No one can tell u whats the best way to work your craft. Everyone has a system. The ones that are successful from it only perfect it with time. The ones that try and fail will move into something else.

there are many ways to trade and many ways to build a portfolio. They all take time and skill  
 

[october]

9 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

I think u missed my point. 
u can’t say that packing one book equals the same time u pack 10 30 or 100 books. 1-5 books takes 5 minutes. 10-20 may take 15 minutes and so forth and so on

 

Well, obviously.  Nobody said otherwise. That doesn't mean you can't figure an average handling time per book when you look at the aggregate. 

9 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

You should consider allotting a certain amount of hours a week to make a certain amount of money, is the proper way to look at it.

That's exactly what I just said.  "It's what you are making per hour of work. Below a certain threshold it's not worth the time spent."

[1Cool]

9 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

Sure. Here’s how I work it

i have a long box which has random books, the runs I usually keep separate unless there are several big books there which I send to grade... the odd ones I price out based on lowest price offered. Vfnm Books like bronze/copper x men, asm, hulk u can easily price at 5+5. Same goes with not so common variants that don’t really have much hype. 
bronze marvel in fine-vf fall into that category as well. I move tons of 5$ tpb on amazon as well. Tons. Amazon is much easier to work with tho since they have a ranking system that works wonders and I can tell u by a books ranking just how quickly it will move

Thanks for the info.  I did some sales on Amazon with sets like Venom Lethal Protector 1-6 but it just seemed like a lot more hassle and fees being paid out compared to E-Bay.  But good to hear to have found a sales method that works for you - keep at it!

[october]

6 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

No one can tell u whats the best way to work your craft. Everyone has a system. The ones that are successful from it only perfect it with time. The ones that try and fail will move into something else.

there are many ways to trade and many ways to build a portfolio. They all take time and skill  
 

But there is a best way. It's the way that makes the most money by the most efficient method possible. That's what's wonderful about capitalism. 

[DavidTheDavid]

4 hours ago, october said:

But that's exactly how you should be looking at it. It's what you are making per hour of work. Below a certain threshold it's not worth the time spent, unless someone considers it fun.  

That's one reason I quit with the low dollar books on ebay. It consumed a lot of time for little return. What I wanted was people buying more than one comic. What I got was people buying one or two comics. Just not worth it. I took the rest to my LCS, gave him a good deal, and now I seldom sale. When I do, it's generally to cover other purchases. So yeah, that game wasn't for me.

[the blob]

5 hours ago, 1Cool said:

After looking over a ongoing sales thread which is selling $5 books - do you let me know a few books you bought for basically nothing and were able to sell for $5 plus $5 shipping.  I sell some of those type of books abut I'm wondering what type of books you get people to bite on.  Perfectly ok if you don't want to - I'm just curious.

I have not done as well on a lot of these as I had hoped. A fair amount of $2 books bought here and at shows I decided were not keepers that I thought would be good sales..not so much.. I thought of certain books as pretty ebayable at $4.99 starting bids, and not much action, even with 100 other auctions going. Maybe 5-10 sell? Mind you, I think a lot of them would sell for $5, eventually, if I stuck them in an ebay store, but I don't want to fill up store slots on $5 books.

[the blob]

5 hours ago, 1Cool said:

After looking over a ongoing sales thread which is selling $5 books - do you let me know a few books you bought for basically nothing and were able to sell for $5 plus $5 shipping.  I sell some of those type of books abut I'm wondering what type of books you get people to bite on.  Perfectly ok if you don't want to - I'm just curious.

Donut lists a bunch of $5 auctions every week or so with nearly $7 shipping and obviously does a lot of action. But he is not listing drek and a lot of the books have some upward mobility past the $5.

[the blob]

1 hour ago, Aweandlorder said:

Sure. Here’s how I work it

i have a long box which has random books, the runs I usually keep separate unless there are several big books there which I send to grade... the odd ones I price out based on lowest price offered. Vfnm Books like bronze/copper x men, asm, hulk u can easily price at 5+5. Same goes with not so common variants that don’t really have much hype. 
bronze marvel in fine-vf fall into that category as well. I move tons of 5$ tpb on amazon as well. Tons. Amazon is much easier to work with tho since they have a ranking system that works wonders and I can tell u by a books ranking just how quickly it will move

So fixed price listings on Amazon? Don't they charge $40 a month to sell there?

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by the blob

[1Cool]

The $5 sellers I can understand if you are getting close to $5 a book when all the dust clears but I really don't understand the $1.99 guys who seem to always have books up for sale.  That is a lot of work for $2 a book and what if a bunch of single books sell?

[the blob]

4 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

The $5 sellers I can understand if you are getting close to $5 a book when all the dust clears but I really don't understand the $1.99 guys who seem to always have books up for sale.  That is a lot of work for $2 a book and what if a bunch of single books sell?

I agree, when I list $5 auctions I am fine with selling those books for $5. I always have a hope for multiple wins or it directing traffic to my store.

[1Cool]

8 minutes ago, the blob said:

Donut lists a bunch of $5 auctions every week or so with nearly $7 shipping and obviously does a lot of action. But he is not listing drek and a lot of the books have some upward mobility past the $5.

Dan use to sell a TON of books here on the boards for $3 a piece but i think the days of getting $3 for pretty much any older book has run its course on the boards.  Those were the good old days.

Edited January 14, 2020 by 1Cool

[the blob]

3 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Dan use to sell a TON of books here on the boards for $3 a piece but i think the days of getting $3 for pretty much any older book has run its course on the boards.  Those were the good old days.

I think Dan would do fine here doing that and his last $3 sale was not that long ago. This is stuff he puts up for $5 on ebay I would assume.

[the blob]

4 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Dan use to sell a TON of books here on the boards for $3 a piece but i think the days of getting $3 for pretty much any older book has run its course on the boards.  Those were the good old days.

The irony is that it is harder and harder to find this stuff at shows for $2-3, much less the good old $1 box, yet people seem to expect to be able to buy for $1 and flip for $5-10...

[Aweandlorder]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

Thanks for the info.  I did some sales on Amazon with sets like Venom Lethal Protector 1-6 but it just seemed like a lot more hassle and fees being paid out compared to E-Bay.  But good to hear to have found a sales method that works for you - keep at it!

36 minutes ago, the blob said:

So fixed price listings on Amazon? Don't they charge $40 a month to sell there?

 

I  assume this is the listing for Lethal Protector:

https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Protector-Complete-Limited-Marvel/dp/B00JQHECZ2

So how does it work on amazon?

Instead of creating an entire listing from the ground up, when you list a book on Amazon it goes under a Master Listing. from there, titles are listed under the Master Listing and organized by condition and price.

MUCH easier than building a full-blown listing on the bay, right?!

Furthermore, if you’re the lowest priced listing, and your seller rating isn’t whack, you’ll grab the coveted BUY BOX. It’s the all-important orange “Add-to-Cart” button; the one shoppers click on to buy a product. 

But wait, how do I know if my book will sell quick or next year?

Simpe... just look at its BSR

You see, if a product sells, even a single unit, then Amazon assigns the item a BSR. The lower the Best Selling Rank, the more sales the product makes. so, for example, if a book has a BSR of 1, that means it’s the best selling book on Amazon. A #1 ranked book would sell multiple copies every single day. but if a book has a BSR of 2 million, it could take 60 days or more to sell a single copy of the book.

So as to the Venom listing above, you can see, its BSR is at #1,886,366. Which means that even if you were the lowest price in the listing, it would still take awhile for it to sell it.... probably a few months, maybe even a year.

I would type/scan all of my books ISBN into Amazon and then cross-reference them with the each book’s BSR. For comics If it was lower than 1 million, and at a price of $11.50 (shipping included)  i would list it. The entire process takes seconds... You sit with a long box pull and scan. 

Youd have to have an active amazon account in good standing, Individual seller accounts are free, but you have to pay an extra $1.00 for every unit you sell. Conversely, professional seller accounts cost $39.95/month. However, as a pro sell, you don’t have to pay the extra fee of $1.00/unit. So, if you think you’re going to sell more than 40 units per month it’s less expensive to sign up for the professional selling plan.

I hope this helps anyone reading this if the Amazon game is good for them.

 

 

[Aweandlorder]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

The $5 sellers I can understand if you are getting close to $5 a book when all the dust clears but I really don't understand the $1.99 guys who seem to always have books up for sale.  That is a lot of work for $2 a book and what if a bunch of single books sell?

And again, I wouldnt always go hard on listing $5 books. Only when I notice a dry period. Instead of sitting on a store full of $20+ ticket items which wouldnt move during a slow season, I would pull those $5 books out and list away. it works

[the blob]

22 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

I  assume this is the listing for Lethal Protector:

https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Protector-Complete-Limited-Marvel/dp/B00JQHECZ2

So how does it work on amazon?

Instead of creating an entire listing from the ground up, when you list a book on Amazon it goes under a Master Listing. from there, titles are listed under the Master Listing and organized by condition and price.

MUCH easier than building a full-blown listing on the bay, right?!

Furthermore, if you’re the lowest priced listing, and your seller rating isn’t whack, you’ll grab the coveted BUY BOX. It’s the all-important orange “Add-to-Cart” button; the one shoppers click on to buy a product. 

But wait, how do I know if my book will sell quick or next year?

Simpe... just look at its BSR

You see, if a product sells, even a single unit, then Amazon assigns the item a BSR. The lower the Best Selling Rank, the more sales the product makes. so, for example, if a book has a BSR of 1, that means it’s the best selling book on Amazon. A #1 ranked book would sell multiple copies every single day. but if a book has a BSR of 2 million, it could take 60 days or more to sell a single copy of the book.

So as to the Venom listing above, you can see, its BSR is at #1,886,366. Which means that even if you were the lowest price in the listing, it would still take awhile for it to sell it.... probably a few months, maybe even a year.

I would type/scan all of my books ISBN into Amazon and then cross-reference them with the each book’s BSR. For comics If it was lower than 1 million, and at a price of $11.50 (shipping included)  i would list it. The entire process takes seconds... You sit with a long box pull and scan. 

Youd have to have an active amazon account in good standing, Individual seller accounts are free, but you have to pay an extra $1.00 for every unit you sell. Conversely, professional seller accounts cost $39.95/month. However, as a pro sell, you don’t have to pay the extra fee of $1.00/unit. So, if you think you’re going to sell more than 40 units per month it’s less expensive to sign up for the professional selling plan.

I hope this helps anyone reading this if the Amazon game is good for them.

 

 

Since my wife buys like $10K worth of   a month on amazon (or so it seems) would that help her seller rating, or are they unrelated?

 

Some of those Amazon prices are funny. 2X the going rate on ebay. I guess folks who don't know what they're doing buy on Amazon. Maybe that is where facebook people get their prices. I need to check it out...

 

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by the blob

[Aweandlorder]

2 minutes ago, the blob said:

Since my wife buys like $10K worth of   a month on amazon (or so it seems) would that help her seller rating, or are they unrelated?

 

My wife used to joke about my comic book sales gig until I threatened her Ill go back to my DJing gigs without it... Now shes coming with me to conventions/yard sales (she actually got quite good with negotiating)