Bulk lot 1300+ nonfiction used books pallet non-fiction Over $13,000 value. Paperback, hardcover. + Bookcases. Start Price USD 0.99 Current Price USD 1,051.00 Time Left - Bid Count 32 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Friday, October 03, 2008 End Time Monday, October 13, 2008 Location Eden Prairie, MN See more about 'Bulk lot 1300+ nonfiction used books pallet non-fiction' Description The Ivar bookcases are pictured at top. The walmart bookcase is in the middle picture, on the left. 1300+ Books, Non-Fiction, Over $13,000 listed value Bookcases Available This auction starts at $1, and has NO RESERVE. We have to sell these books. Happy bidding! About Us Let me introduce myself: my name is Jordan Magnuson, and I, with my wife Marisa, have been selling used books on Amazon.com for the past several months. We are freelance web designers (www.davidlerin.com - our middle names are David and Lerin), and we got into online book selling to supplement our income. We love what we have been doing, but we also have been wanting to get out of the country and travel ever since we got married, and are in the process of getting ready to move to South Korea to teach English. We can't exactly lug all of our books over there with us, and since we don't know when we will be returning, we have decided to sell them in bulk. It's a bit sad to sell off all the jewels we've spent so much time collecting, but hey, we're excited about where we're going, and we could use the money. In a way this is our loss, but I hope we can help someone else succeed in the online book selling business. Our Inventory Our complete inventory listing can be downloaded from our website:http://www.davidlerin.com/david_lerin_books_inventory.xls We currently have 1329 books in our inventory, listed for an average price of $10.20, for a total listed value of $13,551.25; 96% of the books are listed for more than $5.00, with the remaining 4% being listed for $3.00 or more; almost all of the books are nonfiction; hardcover and paperback, most in good to like-new condition; some are ex-library books. We have been repricing our books over the last couple of weeks (we've repriced about 90% of our inventory), so the prices are generally "up to date" -- meaning that we consider the books to be valued correctly, and competitively. Of course, different people have different pricing schemes, so we would expect you to take a look at the inventory list and prices yourself, to see if you agree with us. When looking over our inventory and pricing, one thing that you have to keep in mind is the sales rank of the books. We list the books to make as much profit as possible while still selling them in a reasonable time frame. A book that is ranked 500,000 will sell an average of 1 book per week (this is from Weber, The Home Based Bookstore, page 52), and a lot of the time, the prices climb fairly rapidly, so don't assume that we're crazy for listing a book at $7.00 when you see it starting for $0.50. Case study: I just pulled a random book out of our inventory (isbn 067987058X), which we have listed for $4.00 (keep in mind that our average listed value is over $10.00, so this happens to be one of our lowest priced books). The book sells new on Amazon for $15.96, but used books start for 75 cents. However, the sales rank for the book is 400,000 which means that it sells more than 1 copy per week, and the used prices go up to $5.00 within 7 listings, which means that we should be able to sell ours easily within 5 weeks or so. We have actually been overseas on a web design related business trip for the last couple of months, so our listings have been "on vacation" since August, but here are the stats from our last 3 months of selling: July 2008: $947.25 profit (after postage) from 116 sales. June 2008: $1,052.63 profit (after postage) from 141 sales. May 2008: $2,226.76 profit (after postage) from 240 sales. We have been using TheArtOfBooks.com to manage our inventory (a very good, almost free service, if you are not familiar with them). Through them we list our books on Amazon.com, A1Books.com, Biblio.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, Half.com, and ValoreBooks.com. About 80% of our sales come through amazon, with 10-15% from Barnes and Noble and Half combined, and the rest of the venues taking up the remainder. We are aware that making a purchase like this is a bit daunting. We don't want you to have any hesitations or doubts whatsoever. So... Don't Just Trust Us... Please Do Your Research 1. Check out our amazon.com profile, "David Lerin Books": http://www.amazon.com/gp/shops/index.html?ie=UTF8&sellerID=A1BDLMHO6NNT0V. You can see that we have a seller rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars from 116 ratings. We have only had ONE neutral rating, and NO negative ratings. Also look for us on our other venues. 2. Email or call us for references, including from people that have bought from us, and other booksellers. 3. Email or call us for any other inventory or sales statistics that you would like. 4. Come down and see our books in person! Just email or call us for our address in Eden Prairie, and we can figure out a time that works. Bookcases If you are interested, I can throw in a very nice set of "Ivar" bookcases from Ikea, as well as a bookcase from Walmart that together will hold the entire collection of books, for an additional $100 over the winning bid (we paid $300 for the bookshelves originally, and they are in like-new condition). Extras We will provide the buyer with the full amazon-compatible inventory list, with prices, sku's, etc., so that all you will need to do is upload the list to your amazon account, and you are good to start selling the books! (We can even put a prefix on all of our sku's, so as long as you know generally where are books are located in your house, you can keep the sku's, stickers and everything.) If you've never sold books online before don't worry the process is very easy, and this is the perfect place to start (we're happy to help you in any way we can); if you are already selling books online, but are having trouble boosting your sales to the next level, this inventory could be just what you need. These books have been found, bought, listed, and stickered... all that is left to do is ship them out when they are purchased. Consider that if you pay $1000 for them, you are paying less than if you had to go out and find them, and buy them, and list them from scratch. Return on Investment Keep in mind that I am not an objective outside party, but I thought I would do my best to help you determine your possible return on investment if you purchase these books (sorry, I'm a physics major, and can't help it :). The first thing to take into account is that with our current pricing scheme our inventory has been making $1000 a month or more (that's profit after postage) on a consistent basis, from 100-150 book sales a month. That means that if all goes well, you should be able to make $1000 or more off this inventory within the first month of owning it, and still have over 1100 books left. Which means that if you pay $1000 for this inventory, you should be able to recoup the money within one month, and have 1100+ books listed at over $11,000 from which to gain pure profit. If you buy the books for $2000 you should be able to recoup within two months, and still have around 1000 books of pure profit left. Our inventory is currently listed for a total of $13,551.25, but of course, realistically, it will not make that much money back. First of all, not all of the books will sell within a reasonable time, and those books will need to be repriced, and some thrown out. Being a physics major, I always want to inspect the limiting cases of any given situation, in order to project a probable outcome, so... Let's examine a worst case scenario: Say that you have to reprice a full half of the books, because half of them don't sell in a timely manner, and that you have to cut their listed value in half (that would be a pretty bad situation, but let's assume the worst): that means that out of 1300 books, you have to take 650 of them and list them for half of what we have them listed for, because they haven't sold within, say, ten months. Since the average price of our listings is $10.00, that means that you'll have to take 650 books down to $5.00 (on average). So now you have 650 books selling for an average of $10.00, and 650 selling for an average of $5.00. But let's say that a full 20% of the books have to be chucked out completely, because their values fall too low. Then we're left with a total of 1040 books (from the initial 1300), 520 selling for an average of $10.00, and 520 for an average of $5.00. At the end of the day then you will make 520 x 10 + 520 x 5 = $7,800. But don't forget about shipping: average media rate shipping cost with delivery confirmation is about $2.60 (via endicia.com), so shipping costs will be about $2,700 for those 1040 books. That leaves you with a final $7,800 - $2,700 = $5,100. If you've bought the books for, say, $2000 then, you're left with a $3,100 profit, or a 155% return on investment. Assuming everything goes as badly as possible. Let's examine a best case scenario: with some luck, you'll only have to decrease half of the inventory's listed value by, say, 20% before they will sell, and you only have to chuck out 10% of the books. That leaves you with about 1200 books, 600 selling for an average of $10, and 600 selling for an avarage of $8.00. So 600 x 10 + 600 x 8 = $10,800. Minus $3100 for shipping, and you're left with $7,700. If you buy the inventory for $2000 then, that's $5,700 pure profit, or a 285% return on investment. Is this a good return on investment (ROI)? Well, another thing I do on the side to make a bit of money is buy and sell Apple PowerBook laptops on eBay; I've been doing that for about four years. With the PowerBooks I'm happy if I can buy one for $800 and sell it for $1100, making $300 in the process. That's a 38% return on investment. Consider that you would get a better ROI, even in the worst case scenario above, if you bought these books for $3500. ([5100 - 3500]) / 3500 = 45% return on investment.) And keep in mind: you will hardly have to do any work here besides actually shipping out the books, which, if you already sell books online, you are doing already. Sold As Is This is a great inventory of used books, which has been very profitable for us, but please be aware that this inventory is sold "as is." You have access to the list, which you can look over at your leisure, and you are welcome to call us, and come see the books for yourself. But if you bid on and win this auction, the books are your responsibility. There is no warranty or return. Best Wishes! More Info Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions: just click on "Ask seller a question" link above to send me an email, or call me at 952-983-0304. I will be happy to shoot additional photos, give you more stats, or whatever. Thanks for checking out our book collection, and I hope it ends up in good hands! All of the photos on this page are of the actual books you are bidding on. Click on the thumbnails for a larger view. Remember that your bid is a binding legal contract as per ebay rules. If you have a feedback rating lower than 5, please contact me when placing a bid, or I may remove your bid. Thanks! Shipping We would prefer to sell to a local buyer; books MUST be picked up within a 3 days of the end of the auction, as we are leaving the country. Payment by PayPal is REQUIRED immediately at the end of the auction. The winning bidder MUST have a CONFIRMED PayPal address. We will consider selling to out of state buyers, but you MUST contact me before placing a bid. We will pack the books for a non-local buyer, but the buyer must arrange shipment, and pay for all shipping expenses, as well as the boxes required for packaging the books. And because we are leaving the country, the books MUST be picked up within 3 days of the end of the auction. Best wishes!   Note: We have just returned from our business trip, and are in the process of making final arrangements before moving to Korea. Our Amazon profile was on vacation mode while we were away, but we have just turned it back to being active; so our inventory will be LIVE on amazon.com until the end of this auction, which means that some of the books will be sold. However, we will shut off our listing if we sell over 25 books in that time, or if our total listed value goes below $13,100. So the number of books that you get WILL be 1300+, and the listed value WILL be $13,000+. We will of course provide you with the updated inventory list. On Oct-05-08 at 10:42:20 PDT, seller added the following information:As a bonus, we will be throwing in a copy of Steve Weber's book, The Home-Based Bookstore, which we have found to be extremely helpful in running our online bookselling business. A really great reference if you are a beginner, or even if you've been doing this for a while.On Oct-05-08 at 19:31:51 PDT, seller added the following information:PDA and Scanner for ScoutingIf you are interested, we are also selling our PDA and scanner that we use for scouting (finding the amazon.com value of a book so we know whether it is worth buying or not). You can find that auction here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=280274477312We have a second PDA that we are selling here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=270283752308On Oct-07-08 at 14:24:48 PDT, seller added the following information:Attention Out-of-State Buyers:If you are outside of Minnesota and would still like to buy these books, don't give up hope! Conventional shipping methods would be impractical and expensive for so many books, but we would highly recommend you look into freight shipping options, which can be quite economical for large, heavy loads like this. Two good places to start are freightcenter.com/ebay.htm and ebay.freightquote.com. If you can arrange for a freight company to come pick up the books, we are happy to pack them up for you! Place a Bid!