QUESTION: I ended up selling one of my copies of Genetic Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases at a loss, due to the strange fall in prices and the workings of my repricing software. Amazon lists the book for $92 and says that it has only one copy on hand. The sales rank was 25,000 yesterday, and today it’s up to 88,000.
From third-party sellers, the New price now starts out at $.01, but after seven listings it jumps to $28, and the 10th listing is for $72. There are a total of 33 New offers. The 13 Used prices start at around $10 and jump to $20 at the fourth listing.
My most recent New copy sold for $5.01 through Fulfillment by Amazon. I use RepriceIt and set a $5 minimum price. I paid $12 a copy for the books from a wholesaler.
There are a couple of things I can’t figure out. How could sellers acquire these books for pennies? And why would they sell them for pennies, given the nature of the book, the wealthier audience for it, and the pricing pattern? This is not a case where there is a new edition on the market.
And what should I have done differently? I suspect that I should have held the book out of the repricing process and stuck to a price in the $30 range, in the belief that the downward pricing pressure may end before long. If I am wrong in this strategy, I would not end much worse off financially than selling the book for $5.01 FBA.
Thoughts?
ANSWER: Ouch! I know that hurts because it’s happened to me several times. I also dabble in overstock and remainder books, and all too often take my lumps when supply rises and prices collapse.
But there is pretty strong demand for this title, considering how specialized it is. For a book to have an Amazon Sales Rank below 90,000 it needs to sell several copies per week — perhaps one or two a day, including Marketplace copies and those Amazon sells directly from its stock. To maintain a ranking of around 25,000, a title is selling about 5 to 10 copies a day.
I also use RepriceIt and have started using their new “item settings” feature which lets you set a minimum and maximum price for each listing. On a book like this, I’d definitely set a minimum price ($30 to $40?) that guarantees me a healthy profit after costs, even if I have to hold the book for a year or two.
This book is unlike your typical remainder, which is a popular hardcover being dumped because a cheaper paperback edition is on its way to bookstores. This one is a high-priced, specialized academic book — and a briskly selling one, an online bookseller’s dream! Except for those nasty penny listings.
I also use Aman to analyze books, and the photo on the left is Aman’s item display for this one. The thing that stands out is the big quantity, more than 200, by two overstock dealers, Bargain Bookstores and A1 Overstock. Even more than the penny listings, those big quantities are the downside of this title — from a short-term perspective, at least.
I don’t think anyone’s getting this title for pennies, but the big supply, I’m guessing, has led one or more sellers to panic, and try to unload this title as soon as possible. Or maybe it’s simply a mistake by one or more sellers. I still think the book is still a good buy at $10 or $20 apiece — especially if Amazon doesn’t replenish its stock.
With Amazon low on stock, the Marketplace copies will be snapped up fairly quickly, so I don’t understand the multiple sellers offering it for a penny. (Hey, where have I heard that before?)
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4 Comments
The other problem you have with some mega-sellers is that they have their re-pricing software set to be the lowest price overall. “horizon_bb” is one of the worst for this, and I generally won’t buy a book if I see they have a large quantity of a title – why?
Say the new price is $20, and current used is $16, but somebody lists a used copy for $10. If that $10 copy doesn’t sell before horizon_bb or others reprices, the new price just went from $20 to $10.
They do this across the board, sales rank of 100 or 600,000. If it is a hot book, and they don’t have too many copies, sometimes they sell out and prices return to normalcy, but on a higher sales rank book, the price is quickly destroyed and on the death spiral to a penny.
Repricing software is great, but I see so many people making mistakes:
Make sure you are only setting new prices against new inventory.
Make sure you are ignoring new sellers (low or no feedback), acceptable condition, or other lowball offers – this is all pretty easy with repriceit, AOB, Indaba, Monsoon, etc.
If people just did those things it would help all our bottom lines, and if someone personally knows some of those people like horizon_bb you should tell them to take a real look at their accounting to see how bad they are hurting their (and our) bottom line. Unfortunately, they themselves are probably in a spiral where they have to try and keep as much volume flowing out the door, at any price, to support their self-defeating undercutting policies.
Anyhow, that is my 2 cents.
I use RepriceIt and set a $5 minimum price. I paid $12 a copy for the books from a wholesaler.
1. Learn how to use your repricer
2. Don’t use repricers
3. try another service – where you can set each book – or reprice by % not $
I think YOU have to blame YOU
Bookateria, you live in a small, dark, and deeply troubled world. Blame, blame, blame. Shame, shame, shame.
Steve saves the day! The lowest New price has jumped to $28. Thanks Steve.