You Can Sell Your Used Books on Amazon to Make Extra Cash
If you're looking for an easy way to make extra cash, consider selling your used books on Amazon. The site hosts a huge number of third-party retailers, made up of individuals or businesses that sell their goods using the platform. According to a report published by Business Insider, third-party merchants accounted for 58 percent of Amazon’s sales in 2018, a huge jump from 1999 when they made up just 3 percent of its gross merchandise sales. For those who'd like to get in on it but are new to selling on Amazon, here's how to get started.
Pick a selling plan
Before you start selling on Amazon, you'll need to decide which seller plan you'll need. Sellers can pick one of two plan options: An individual plan costs $.99 for every item you sell, which may work for you if you just have a few small stacks of reading material to unload. A professional plan costs $39.99 per month, which may work best for you if you plan to sell more than 40 books a month. The pro plan also includes advertising, sales data, and inventory-management tools for those looking to run a business selling on the platform.
Amazon also charges a referral fee for each item sold, on top of the plan cost. For books, the fee is 15 percent plus a $1.80 closing fee. When you're pricing your items, you'll want to keep that fee in mind.
Open an Amazon Seller's Account
Once you've chosen a plan, you can either sell from your existing Amazon customer account or open a separate Amazon Seller's Account. A seller's account lets you direct proceeds to a separate bank account and use a business email to track sales, so they don't get lost in your personal inbox. This is a good option if you plan to sell a large volume of books or like to keep your personal and professional correspondence – and finances – separate. Before you open the account, have ready:
A business email address or Amazon customer account
A credit card
Government ID
Tax information
Phone number
A bank account for proceeds from your sales
Download Amazon Seller
The Amazon Seller app is basically the sales equivalent of your Amazon buying app (which, let's be honest, we all have on our phones already). It lets you track sales, fulfill placed orders, correspond with your customers, and create listings. You can also take and edit photos through the app, so you don't need to sit down at a computer to get your books up and ready to fly off your shelves.
Start listing your books
Since books are an unrestricted item on Amazon, you can sell new and used books, magazines, textbooks, magazines, even the sheet music your kids stopped using two months after they begged for lessons. The Amazon seller app can walk you through how to list them.
A product listing includes the book's ISBN number, a description that includes price, condition, and shipping options, and additional identifying information. If someone else has already listed the same book, Amazon will help fill in some of the details. Once you've filled in all of the pertinent info, your book will appear on a product details page, which you've already seen if you shop the site.
Make those sales
Once you've got your books listed, it's time to get selling. How actively you do that depends on your goal. If you're interested in moving a large volume of books as a side hustle, you may want to use some of Amazon's user reviews and advertising capabilities to draw more attention to your products. But if you're just looking to get a handful of old books off your shelves and onto someone else's, you don't need to worry about those as much.
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