The Journey of a New Online Book Seller

Hello all!

I did not end up going to any garage sales yesterday before work, however I did go to a couple of thrift shops after work. It was a little late, so I didn’t have a lot of time but I did scan quite a few books and usually at Goodwill we only really scan through the clearance section anyways. I bought 4 books for around $5.00, they should bring in a little over $50. Nothing crazy, but books to fill the boxes and bring in some profit.

Today I thought I’d see if I could catch some last day Sunday rummage sales. It was quite the disappointing venture. I went to maybe 10 garage sales and I bought 1 book for $0.25, and it should bring in around $5. Not my most rewarding day. At one sale there was a box of books that were pretty recent from classes at a college. After scanning them, 20 in all, I saw that I could make more than $100 dollars with them. Unfortunately, they were very high priced. The book selling for $40 online was selling for $15 at the sale. Some books which were penny books were priced at $5. All in all, way out of my price range. Since the lady who greeted me told me to feel free to make her an offer, I offered her $20. She declined, I offered $25. She said she wouldn’t take less than $50. My last offer was $30 dollars, and when she declined I had to walk away. It was disappointing, but it did make me realize just how lucky me and Matt were with out amazing rummage sale find last week!

Despite my disappointment, I decided to hit up some thrift stores. I am glad I did too, because I ended up buying 9 books between 2 stores. Nothing crazy, but again, books to fill the boxes and keep the money trickling in. I spent $5 and should bring in around $75. It was quite surprising, I scanned through a lot of books in the children’s section and found a few there. They were priced at around $0.29 each, and some of them were selling on Amazon for between $4-$15! Not bad. I’ve found that there can be nice little treasures where you least expect it, especially in the children’s section where sometimes books on children’s education are mistakenly placed.

My plans for the rest of the night include mostly cleaning, but also hitting up one more Goodwill before it closes at 6:00!

Recently Sold:

Speak Truth to Power : Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World – 11.33
Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) – 14.36

Yesterday I spent about three hours driving around town and going to as many garage sales as I could! Garage sales can be frustrating, I remember one day that Matt and I went to 6 garage sales and there were literally no books! However, this time was fairly good. Fun even, I might say.

I think I went to a total of about 20 sales. It’s always really nice to find a sale where they are selling the books for .25 or .50 cents apiece. A few times when I found books that had low ranks and were selling for about $7-8 dollars I would ask the seller to come down a bit and usually they would. I never bought more than one or two books at a sale, though I did do something Matt and I have never done before – buy a board game. We briefly considered looking into selling games when we went to the 9000 book sale where the seller had a few hundred games, however, we decided the hassle of making sure all the pieces were there was not worth it. Yesterday, the game I found was a Disney Scene-it game brand new still in plastic! I bought it for $5 and it is selling new for $50 on Amazon. I’m pretty excited!

Overall I think I bought around 12 books from between $0.50 – $2. I am excited to start documenting them and getting them cleaned up! Once I do, I will post the exact amount spent and an estimation of what we will get for them.

On another note, I think that one of the three boxes Matt and I sent to Amazon arrived yesterday. The other two should get there on Monday. Matt repriced all of the books before he left so I am looking forward to seeing them sell! I will attempt to revive Matt’s old habit of posting which books have sold recently, since Matt doesn’t want me to tell him while he’s gone, I want to share the news with someone!!

Recently Sold:

Being Kammu: My Village, My Life (Southeast Asia Program Series, No. 14) – $17.21

Not too many to list for recent books! But the number should go up in the coming days. I don’t know that I will have time to book scout today as I have to work for 5 hours and then have a college graduation party to attend…but I will certainly try! Maybe I’ll check out some garage sales on the way to work…

UPDATE: I totaled things up! I bought 9 books, spent about 13 dollars, and will make around $105 dollars when all is said and done from my recent garage sale purchases