QUESTION: Why do people “lowball” on Amazon and other bookselling sites? Today I listed a book on Amazon which normally sells for $60 and has a sales rank of 100,000. Someone had listed a copy for $15. Fine, they will get $15 and I will get $60, but why leave money on the table?
ANSWER: The only reason I can think of for listing a $60 book for $15 is … inexperience. When I was new, I regularly lowballed too — but I lowballed by a dollar, not $45.
The longer you do this, the more you realize how hard you’re working to find that $60 book. That’s when you start thinking about how to get every penny you deserve.
If you lowball, you can get sucked into a reverse bidding war, where you’re fighting to sell at the lowest price.
And we’re in the summer lull right now, so it’s the worst time to be lowballing. In a few weeks students will be buying books when college starts and prices for everything will be higher.
Related posts:
8 Comments
Some sellers may have the philosophy that I do when selling. I try not to get hung up on “value”. My concern is quick turnover at a profit. If I pay $1.00 for something that has a value of $100.00 I will list it at $15 to $25 because I want it gone. Maybe short-sighted but I believe there are many sellers that think this way. Just MHO,
Isn’t it also true that it’s not what the book is worth but what someone is willing to pay for it that really matters?
Lowballing is subjective. I take into account the current rank, lowest price, condition of the book I have compared the others for sale, and I also check how many copies the current lowballer has for sale. After doing this, I make a price decision.
I can understand going a little bit lower (maybe a few cents) on a book but not at 75%. Why get rid of it at that low of a price. I wish gas stations would have the same philosophy as low balling book sellers. It would be nice to pay .45 a gallon at the pump. Also when you sell that book at such a great price I or someone else like me is the one buying it and reselling it for top dollar. Finding books like this makes it easy on us and we don’t even have to leave the house.
Sounds to me like there are too many players in the market. Yes, the seller probably bought the book for $1 and made a very good but not maximum profit. That seller is not serious and won’t stay long as a seller. The problem is perhaps it is too easy to enter the market and someone else will do the same.
One thing I think is ridiculous is that sellers think that their buyers are completely stupid. Some people who high price the value of a book have no idea what it’s worth.
Buyers shop around. If it’s selling lower at a number of sites, chances are it’s overpriced. If you’re in it for the long haul, don’t worry about it. I’ve seen CDs on Amazon selling for a penny that a year later go for $20.
I’ve only been selling books online for 6 months, but in my limited experience I’ve found that most of the lowballers are the gigantic sellers with 5 or 6 digits of feedback. Witholding my judgements of their business tactics, I could understand that having an inventory of 10k or even 100k books would necessitate the need to move inventory quickly, especially as the sheer number of sales most likely more than makes up for the low prices.
But for the newer sellers, my best advice is just to be patient and avoid the low price battles. You’ll quickly learn which books sell fast and which ones don’t, and how to be patient in waiting for the right buyers that will pay a fair market price for your valuable books.
Why do sellers list many books on Amazon for only a few cents? I just don’t get it – it’s costing them money to do it, right??