My heap of Maths books...a bit on the process of online selling

It was Friday afternoon, and I wasn't in school. In fact school and I parted ways many years ago. My least favourite subject at school was maths, okay that was understated, it was HELL. I wish it wasn't, I'd probably be sitting in some high paying job by now, but I digress, as is my habit, anyway here I have this pile of maths books on my desk at work on a Friday afternoon. Why???

The answer is I sell online, on an auction platform similar to Ebay, in South Africa. (As many here already know.) I pretty much will sell anything I can post or courier. We also have a second hand shop, so this allows us to buy in bulk, and sift out the treasures to list online. Ordinary goods get sold in the shop, and the leftover junk gets sent to another auction, or dumped. When it comes to knowing what to list online, some instinct for what is sellable is necessary,  but this can be developed through experience. If you would like to try your hand at selling books, here is how I do it.

Firstly the books are purchased at an auction. They can also be picked up at flea markets, garage sales, or even paper waste facilities. Books are not usually very popular sellers at general auctions so you can buy them in bulk really cheaply. My husband bought five boxes of these maths books for R100 ($8,50). I told you bargains were possible!!! My husband does the initial sorting, not forgetting to carefully page through them all. He once discovered R3000 ($255) in cash filed away in various envelopes in a box of books he would otherwise have dumped.

The books are then passed on to me, and land up in dusty, sneeze inducing heaps on my desk. While flicking away the occasional fish moth, I enter the book's details into the most comprehensive, user friendly, book site I am aware of, https://www.abebooks.com/ From there it is pretty easy to obtain a rough estimate of the book's value. I always keep my prices as low as possible, because if someone is looking for a specific book, and my price is the cheapest, they will buy mine!

Some online sellers specialise in selling books, I don't, so I try not to overwhelm my site with book listings, which take a lot longer to sell than other items. It depends on the market you're aiming for, but I try to stick to listing books worth at least R200 ($17) or more. In the case of the maths books, although many of them were fabulously titled, they were not very valuable in monetary terms. I don't know, maybe there was some good old fashioned maths knowledge in them?! I put most of the books in the shop for R10 ($0,85) each, and only kept five to list online. 

If you would like to try your hand at book selling, remember, it is most definitely not a get rich quick scheme. Books take a long time to sell, even if they are very valuable, as the market is so much more limited. Books also take up quite a bit of space and you have to check your storage area for leaks and other problems. I have had book sellers buying books from me to provide to their customers, when their own stock was water damaged. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but books seem to shuffle themselves, and at least once a month I will have to search for a misplaced listing! 

....and now you can sell!

@onetree