AMAZON

I thought Amazon only sold new books?

They do sell books and many other things and they do it very well but what a lot of people do not seem to know is that you can sell second hand books on Amazon in their market place. You can even do auctions. So why not go through your old bookshelves and see what you have, it seems silly to sell them at car boot sales for a few pence or give them away for jumble sales when you can possibly earn £££'s selling them on Amazon. To sell you books on Amazon go to "sell your stuff" on the tool bar. From there you are asked to enter either the name of the book or the ISBN number of the book. Its the number you will find on most books today, often above the bar code. Use this if you can because it will ensure the correct title of the book is chosen and will even provide you with a picture to confirm it is the correct book.

You then select the condition of the book from a drop down list and then add comments about the book. The next step will tell you the price for a new book and also the lowest market price i.e. the cheapest price that someone is offering the book for sale. There is also a link which will show you all the used books for sale, their condition and price so that you can pitch your price at the right level - they do try to help you the whole way through the process.

Finally, you will get a page come up showing you the price of your book, to which Amazon will add a standard fee to cover postage and packaging and then details of Amazon's fees leaving a figure that you will receive if the book is sold.

Obviously to take advantage of this you need to be a registered seller with Amazon, if you are not currently registered and want to investigate further then go to: www.amazon.co.uk

So if you like the idea of selling books on Amazon, why not take it the next step and turn it into a small business. Try visiting second hand book fairs and even better car boot sales where you can often pick up books in excellent condition for a few pennies and then sell them on Amazon. I have sold books for as much as £9 and they have not been in mint condition but as long as you give an accurate description people will buy.

The other good thing about selling on Amazon is that there are no placement fees, you only pay a fee if the book is sold.

My tips for selling on Amazon:-

• Give a clrear and honest description of the books condition, in my experience you will sell books that are not in top condition
• If you are looking to source books from fairs or car boot sales then do your research carefully to see if the books will sell on Amazon, remember they only stay up for 60 days
• Take care when pricing the book and make sure you allow enough to cover postage costs as the Amazon figure will not cover the cost of posting the larger heavier books
• Do not expect the feedback which you get on eBay, despite selling books on Amazon no feedback has been left by the purchaser