People that sell books for a penny on ebay/amazon etc. how the h**l do they make a profit?

Question

I am trying to sell some of my old text books on ebay/amazon. I have noticed that some sellers are selling books for as little as penny. I can understand on ebay, they can bump up the postage, or people posting parcels at work and not declaring it,but on amazon the postage is £2.75 regardless of the weight of the book. some text books cost £4-5 to post, I have seen some sellers sell these text books for a penny . how the h**l are they making profit? I should add that most of these are book sellers and not individuals

Answer 1

on there postage maybe

Answer 2

Often they make it up on the shipping and handling charges ...  they  collect the same £2.75 for shipping a lightweight novel.

Answer 3

The book in the shelf (taking up space somewhere) costs more than just getting rid of it.

Answer 4

correct...I have sold not to make a profit, but to benefit others and make room on my bookshelves for new books....

Answer 5

The eBay strategy of starting an auction at a penny can be a dangerous one.  The idea is that greedy customers will begin to bid right away hoping to purchase an item for almost nothing.  This feeds the bidding frenzy and drives the price up--hopefully up higher than it would have if a reasonable opening bid price had been established.

The danger is that if you have items that are not in much demand, you might end up actually selling them at a penny each and losing your shirt.

The best advice is to start the auction at the absolute least amount you'll take for the item and let it go from there.  You are insured of either selling it for the least amount you'll take or not selling it at all.  

I would use a starting price slightly under what the campus book store would buy back the book from you and go from there.

Answer 6

They're probably just trying to get rid of it-lols

Answer 7

Maybe they need to get rid of them and then write them off as a tax loss...either way they don't lose anything.

Answer 8

as book sellers they have probably had them in their inventory longer than they should have.

Answer 9

The problem is there are so many people selling for so little that unless you also sell low then your book has no chance of selling at all so its best to get a little for them instead of nothing. I have a lot of academic books from my university years, some i paid more than £50 for but ive sold for as little as £5 because others were selling it low.

Answer 10

They may just want to get rid of them, pass them on to someone who will actually use them?