BootsnAll Travel Community

Has anyone sold old stuff on the Amazon.com marketplace? In your experience, is it a viable way to make some extra cash or does it just net you a few bucks a couple times a year?

I have tonnnns of old books and such which I never use anymore. I've toyed with putting them on Amazon, but it always seems like the payoff wouldn't justify the effort. 'Twould be nice if I were totally wrong here.

Thoughts?

In my experience, it just nets you a couple of bucks a few times a year. On the other hand, that stuff is just sitting around the house collecting dust anyway. Their system works pretty well, by the way. I find it easier to use than eBay.

It depends on the books. I used to be a costume designer and switched to law, so I got rid of a lot of my old costuming books. As of now, I've made probably close to $1500 in the last year. Granted, some of these books were out of print and collectibles, but you never know what you might have. I also sold most of my law school books there, and usually got enough out of it to warrant the extra work.

The nicest thing about Amazon is its ease of use. It only takes about 2 minutes to post a listing (after you set up an account), and then you don't do anything until you sell it. The listing stays there for around 3 months at which point Amazon will send you an email asking if you want to renew it. Then all you do is check the other listings, look to see if your listing is comparable still in price (sometimes I wind up going up or down in price when I renew), and just click to renew. Easy as pie...

There are definitely some books not worth listing, and you can check out other people's listings to see what they're being sold at and whether it's worth it. Remember, though, that Amazon gives you a credit for shipping, so you can even make a little bit more money on the lighter-weight books.

If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me - I've sold hundreds of books on Amazon.

For books, check out half.com. In the last 18 months I've sold 34 books for roughly $550.

For technology, ebay is always the way to go. Never had a bad experience and I've always gotten at least as much as I wanted in auctions.

I sell on amazon marketplace and half.com frequently. I make a few thousand a year doing so. Over the summer I picked up 110 dvd's for $90 at our annual community yard sale that goes on in the town that I live in. I listed them on amazon and half.com and within a week I made $400. It works pretty well.

ive sold about 20 books on amazon (have to mail another one tomorrow) but it doesnt net that much, feels like they are making more off me...but im tired of lugging them around on all my moves...

Unless you have loads of stuff to sell, your best bet is ebay. Your stuff will sell faster and for a higher amount.

Brian and I have both been using Amazon/Ebay/Craigslist for the past couple of weeks and it has been great. Brian's made about $300 so far, and I've made about $100 -

We put books/video games on amazon.
Furniture on craigslist.
Random stuff on ebay.

We still have a lot to go. The thing about Amazon is to look up an item and see how much it is selling for used - we have a ton of books/movies that we're going to give away bc it won't be worth our time. But some stuff we've been REALLY surprised by.

I've sold a few books on Amazon. I've had an excellent experience. The customers are always happy when they get their books.

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Unless you have loads of stuff to sell, your best bet is ebay

I have sold on E-Bay.co.uk but the fee's tend to build up after a while which is a bit worrying , are there any other sites which to sell on please?

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Originally posted by LouiseTopp:
I have sold on E-Bay.co.uk but the fee's tend to build up after a while which is a bit worrying , are there any other sites which to sell on please?

Anyone can sign up on an international ebay site and list. The reason this may help is that listings cost, for instance the most basic, $0.20 on Ebay US but 0.20 Euro(=US$0.27) on ebay.de. I don't know what the rates are for the UK, but you could re-register at the American ebay.com (or maybe ebay.ca or ebay.com.au, and list for less the the ebay.co.uk price). Yes you can still list on ebay.co.uk (at the ebay.com price) ship from the UK and sell to the UK. Just register on ebay US/CA/AU (which ever is cheapest) and then log into the ebay.co.uk with that registration and you should still be charged the listing price coresponding to the county site you registed with. Funny loophole, huh?

Just a thought.

I have sold my granny Rosamunde Pilcher-like books on amazon. Earned somthing like 30$. ;-)

I've sold stuff on there before. Accurately describe your books; I said a book was in used condition and got in a dispute with someone about the status b/c I said "some highlighting" and he said there was "more than some highlighting." A lot of nuts out there buy stuff on the Internet. I ended up lowering the cost and making him happy, but that's my advice.

I put a lot of stuff up there a while ago; it's easy to post and easy to send stuff out. Just make sure to put it on Vacation Status if you plan on going out of town b/c I think you are supposed to ship everything w/i two days.