Here are the top 10 library book sales of 2013. The chart below shows the location, date attended, exact profit, and the percentage of books sold.
Everyone has their own buying criteria when they're at a book sale. These results reflect my own personal strategy of scooping up the lower value books and setting a floor (bottom) price of $8-10 on Amazon FBA. About 70% of the books sold at a price of $9.95 or lower.
I personally like to scan fast and list fast. The rest is automated. All the pricing is done with a repricer, and many of the labels were put on with the Amazon Label Service.
Rank | Location | Date Started | Current Profit | % of Books Sold |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Greenwich, CT | June 2013 | $1211.13 | 81% |
2 | Pawley's Island, SC | July 2013 | $1117.92 | 84% |
3 | Poughkeepsie, NY | June 2013 | $928.14 | 83% |
4 | Carrboro, NC | April 2013 | $806.58 | 65% |
5 | Chapel Hill, NC | August 2013 | $623.79 | 56% |
6 | Wilmington, NC | September 2013 | $502.62 | 64% |
7 | St. Louis, MO | August 2013 | $481.16 | 76% |
8 | Williamsburg, VA | September 2013 | $458.60 | 64% |
9 | Halifax, VA | October 2013 | $435.48 | 77% |
10 | Clemmons, NC | October 2013 | $355.98 | 96% |
Tj says
Hi Nathan,
When you source from other states, do you ship from those states as well or do you just bring them home with you? I’m wondering if this causes some kind of nexus issue, that’s why.
Thanks!
Nathan Holmquist says
It doesn’t really matter where you ship from. Amazon will distribute the books to different states no matter where you are shipping from.
TJ says
Do you usually ship all your books to one warehouse? I have found that is how it almost always happens for me. If you don’t sell anything else besides books, I assume you only need to register for sales tax for your home state and that particular Amazon warehouse. I understand they can move your inventory anyway, but if you check out your reports on Amazon they very infrequently move. Just wondering how your set up your sales tax IDs…
Nathan Holmquist says
My books usually go to a warehouse in Virginia, but lately they’ve been going to South Carolina. So, I guess I have them in two states. I’m not sure about the sales tax because I haven’t set that up yet.
Anthony says
Hey Nathan I’ve been following what you have been doing and I’m very interested in trying this out! I was just wondering if you think there would be a nice selection of books at a large book sale ( thousands of books) at the last day, specifically for the box sale strategy? Or would the best thing to do start only at preview nights etc. Thanks!
Nathan Holmquist says
Hi Anthony,
Ideally, you would want to go both the preview night and the bag sale. If you’re just starting out, I would go to the preview night. Yes, there will be other scanners there, but you will find some valuable books. Going to the bag sale requires a bit more experience, because you will need to learn how to maximize the profits of the lower value books that the other sellers left behind.
Anthony says
Thanks for the advice Nathan. Well it turns out I won’t make the preview night of the book sale I want to go to in Redding, CT this weekend. Sorry for the bother for more advice but I was going to go for the bag sale, do you think I’d be better off going the second day of the sale instead? My plan was to buy in bulk at the bag fba targets of $7-10. Thanks again!
Nathan Holmquist says
If your plan is to buy in bulk, then the bag day would be your best option.
Anthony says
Thanks again. Keep up with the good work on the website and videos, they are a joy!
Greg says
Eeeek you may want to get with an accountant ASAP. Your books are probably shipping from everywhere and to everywhere. Basically you probably have nexus in most of the 14 states. You need to register for a sales tax permit in each state and pay sales tax to those states. Taxjar has software that integrates with amazon. Good luck
Nathan Holmquist says
Thanks for your comment. When I go to a booksale, I normally bring the books back home and process them. So, all of the books mainly go to one warehouse in Virginia. The Poughkeepsie and Greenwich sale were shipped from the “road”. All those books went to one warehouse in Indiana.
Regards,
Nathan
Greg Stevens says
That’s not how it works Nathan. Your books may ship to one or two warehouses but Amazon typically moves a lot of the books around to various warehouses. You’d be surprised. I have only shipped to two three different warehouses but have products in 12 of them because they have moved items around. You have to register for a sales tax permit for each of those states and pay taxes to each state depending on where your items ship to. That’s exactly how it works. Even if you only ship to Indiana and Virginia you need to register for a permit with each of those states. You need to use the proper software that will tell you where your inventory is and where it is shipping from. I am aware of Taxjar and their software does this. Watch their videos on youtube if you want to understand more about sales tax. Don’t mess around with sales tax. I know exactly what I am talking about.
Nathan Holmquist says
Thanks for the info. Is there any easy way to see where all my inventory is located (what States)? I will also look into TaxJar as well.
Thanks again,
Nathan
Greg Stevens says
Yes, Taxjar will tell you. It is very easy to use and connect to your Amazon or Paypal account. I am not aware of any other product. Yes there should be more products available. I just happen to run into Taxjar when watching fba videos.
Greg Stevens says
Hey, Avalara makes a sales tax product as well to work with Amazon. They are at trustfile.com. Check them out. I just started looking at their product. Have you made any progress?
Dean says
Not an expert with this, but it’s my understanding that nexus is a very nebulous thing and that the whole question of whether or not you need to pay taxes to a particular state is very much in question.
Basically I’ve heard from more than one of the major FBA pundits out there that many of them do not pay taxes to any of the states in which they supposedly have nexus.
In any case, definitely something to ask your accountant.
Chuck says
I have to compliment you on this blog. I currently sell mostly antiques and collectibles on eBay, but I’ve been thinking about dipping my toes into Amazon FBA books. Being someone that likes to research everything before I commit to something, your blog literally answered about 75% of the questions that I wasn’t able to find answers to anywhere else. You laid out the equipment needed, the software and hardware, and even sales results. Best blog (out of the probably 100 or so that I’ve read) on the subject I’ve come across. Keep up the good work!
Nathan Holmquist says
Thanks Chuck! I appreciate your comments. I’m glad you have found the info useful.
Regards,
Nathan
Jonathan says
I’ve enjoyed following your results. How exactly do you use Inventory Lab to keep track of the sales from a particular group of books? I’ve used IL for several months to list my items, though I’ve recently started using your ScanLister product for books and media, which I like. In either case, what do I need to do so that I can go back weeks or months later and isolate my orders from a particular source, as you have done here?
Nathan Holmquist says
I code my SKU numbers with the source and date purchased. For example, Goodwill4/27/15-0001, Goodwill4/27/15-0002. Then I export my sales from inventory lab into an excel spreadsheet. I can then sort the spreadsheet by SKU and figure out the profits per source from there. I also created a program called http://www.SourceProfit.com to make it a bit easier.
Jonathan says
Excellent tip, thanks. I’ll check out your new program as well.
Dean Lind says
There is a program called SourceProfit that will tell you exactly what your sales were from any particular shipment. You label your SKU’s in a consistent manner (eg: YMCA10-28-16_1, YMCA10-28-16_2 etc.) Then in SourceProfit to find out your sales from all items having YMCA10-28-16 you just enter that in the search field.
It will come back and give you total sales for that shipment (to date or within whatever date parameters you choose.) Very handy!
John says
The st louis sale you ONLY got 60+ books????? Which sale was it? YMCA?
Nathan Holmquist says
Yes, I was just there for a couple hours during the preview night. Yes, it was the YMCA sale.
John says
They do/don’t allow scanners? Why didnt you go back, poor selection?
Nathan Holmquist says
I was only in St. Louis for that night. Otherwise, I definitely would have gone to the bag sale!
James Barron says
Hi Nathan, caught your info here on “Book to the future” do you have any
current info on your book business here in February 2019,
Thanks
James