Archive for August, 2008

Finally they arrived

Monday, August 18th, 2008

The books I ordered from the Crafter’s Choice have finally all come. First the single book I ordered to finish the membership requirement came and I already listed that one at $3.69. It was lowest price, but someone must be using a bot to keep their price at the bottom because I note there is one book selling now for $3.68. This game is really cutthroat!

Okay… so the rest of the books are here and Cozy Quilted Christmas is now listed at lowest price 24.77. This leaves three other books to list. I am fighting some cold disappointment on one of these. When I checked the prices on the Giftboxes books, it looked like they would sell for $10 each. Now when I have the actual ISBN numbers to look up, I find out that this ISBN number is restricted only to “approved” sellers. Now what the heck does this mean? I am not allowed to list this set of books?

Well, I can always “list” them on USFreeAds or eBay. If I want to sell them, no one can stop me!

Two of my books, a knitting book(low price $19.75) and a quilting book (low price $15.54) I want to look at before I list; so will put them up later.

I’m traveling to North Carolina Thursday for a week and will have to put my books sales “on vacation” till I get back. I would take it all with me as it’s still small enough, but just don’t want to think about it while I am away.

bought some books

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

I ordered 4 books for $1 each plus shipping….

1. NICKY EPSTEIN’S SIGNATURE SCARVES
2. GIFT BOX STUDIO LIFE AND GIFT BOX STUDIO LOLLI – 2-VOLUME SET
3. ROLLING ALONG: EASY QUILTS FROM 2 1/2 STRIPS
4. A COZY QUILTED CHRISTMAS
Product Total: $4.00
S&H: $11.71
Estimated Sales Tax: $0.00
ORDER TOTAL: $15.71

On the catalog, it says I should have been able to order an additional book for 50% off, but I don’t see this same offer when ordering online. My choices for books were based on competition on Amazon, Amazon.com Sales Rank, and sales price for used books. Hopefully, when these come, I will list them and quickly recoup the money spent, plus some profit. Gift box studio might have been a mistake as it’s two items to be sold separately on Amazon for $10 each. The craft club sold them as one item for $1. Amazon sales rank is very high for that item. Will have to see how it works out.

There was another book I wanted to get: “Knit Tricks”; so I took advantage of their sale:

Special Edition $10.99
Subtotal $10.99
Gift Wrap:
Shipping & Handling $3.99
Sales Tax $0.00
Order Total $14.98

This book sells on Amazon for low price of $14.94 with a sales rank of 37,408 (which is relatively low). I want the patterns in the book and then will list it for sale as used.

I think this purchase satisfies my membership requirement; so will not worry further about more purchases, but will look for bargains along the way.

The Craft Club disappointed me by not having two high value Martha Stewart books in stock.  Those had very good sales rank and would have fetched a nice profit on resale.  Maybe someone else is running this same money making plan and I needed to take action sooner, rather than leave this catalog collecting dust in my junk pile for months.

3 more books sold last week

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

Hurrah!

Here’s a new angle I found. There’s been an invite sitting in my junk pile to “come back” to Crafter’s Guild. That’s a book club for interesting craft books on things like knitting, sewing, crochet, scrapbooking, jewelry making, backyard projects, stained glass… the list goes on forever it seems.

Okay, they want me to buy 4 books for $1+shipping; then one book at club retail plus shipping (BUT, I can get the one at retail for 50% off if I order it with the $1 books!). Shipping is expensive from these clubs.

I took their little catalog and went searching on Amazon to see what the used prices are for their titles and how much competition there is. Doing this study has also helped me see what craft keywords might be hotter than others. Quilting looks pretty good right now.

For example, in their catalog there’s “201 Crochet motifs, blocks, projects and ideas”. I can get it for $1 plus shipping and on Amazon there are only 11 books selling used for lowest price $20.41. Another “A Cozy Quilted Christmas” is selling on Amazon in hardcover with 6 for $24.77 and paperback with 7 for $27.06.

I think that these prices will cover the shipping and handling fees; so I’m going to take this deal and I’ll let you know how it works out.

A lesson I’ve learned is that I can’t look at a book and know if it’s valuable for resale yet; without looking it up on Amazon. Invariably the ones I thought would be valuable were the ones with 59 selling for $1.51 ;-)