How I Beat the Bookstore: Part 2
I don’t like buying textbooks from the bookstore, no one does. They’re expensive, oftentimes you are supporting what is effectively, a local monopoly, you have to fight crowds at the beginning of the semester, and so on. They force us to buy books at inflated prices and then offering us pennies on the dollar to sell the books back - giving them pure profit, and you are paying exorbitant amounts of money for what is basically a textbook rental.I’ve already shown you how to beat the bookstore at buying textbooks, now I am going to show you how you can beat them when you are done with your textbooks.
Selling This Semester?s Books
The very first thing you need to keep in mind is that this requires a little bit of patience, but in return for that patience, you will end up saving a lot more money. The bookstore will usually start doing buybacks around the time that finals start, but your best time to sell books is going to be the beginning of the following semester. Make sure your books are listed by the end of the semester!
Making Your Listings
Gather all of the books that you want to sell, read the ISBN number off of each book and enter into this form along with a note about the book’s condition and any comments. For comments, I will usually put some sort of remark about what kind of use the book got (”lived on my bookshelf all semester”, “CD still attached and sealed”) and/or say how quickly I can ship it (”Will ship same or next day from Austin, TX”). Make sure to follow the condition grading system that half.com uses; be honest or you will get nailed with negative comments from your buyers.
Name Your Price
For pricing, there are a couple of different tacks you can take, and tweak as you start getting a feel for the system:
- If you are in a hurry, set your price at the cheapest you can bear at the condition that you set your book at.
- If you are a bit more patient, and this book seems to be fairly active, try pushing your price closer to the average listing price.
- Think about where your book is going to show up - if it is in the four cheapest listings for that condition grade, it will be a lot more visible (the buyer doesn’t have to clickthrough to the individual condition’s page to see all of listings at that grade)
- Don’t try to compete with the international/teacher’s edition listings - Oftentimes, people will list those alongside regular U.S. editions of textbooks, throwing off the average. (Be honest and disclose what edition it is that you are selling)
Keep an eye your listings and update the prices if you think it is necessary, just make sure that your listings are ready when the semester ends, because that’s when most of the business happens.
You’ve Made a Sale!
Keep an eye on your email for messages from Half.com, they will send you an email when someone has bought something from you. In the message, a shipping letter will be included for you to print off with the recipients’ address, shipping options, and what books they bought. Pack it up (I usually use the USPS bubble mailer available at the Post Office) and get it sent off (make sure to send it Media Mail via USPS, usually the cheapest option). Once you’ve sent it, make sure to notify the buyer and then you can wait for your payday - half.com does their direct deposits twice a month.
Did I miss anything? You have any good tips or ideas? Let me know in the comments!
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