Home Business Magazine August 2012 : Page 36
BUSINESSES & OPPOR TUNITIES How to Start Your Own Online Used Book Store A Fun, Profitable, and Low-Risk Home Business By Steve Johnson R unning your own home book store is fun and profitable, and it is an ideal choice for many people who want to start a low-risk home business. You can start part-time, avoiding the high cost of store-front rent, yet at the same time you can sell used books, music CDs, and educational vid-eos to anyone, anywhere across the country or around the world if you choose. The actual number of books you need to get started with your own home-based book store varies by how fast you want to get going. You could start with 100 books — you’ll probably sell 10%–15% of the books you list within the first month — so if you want to sell more and grow your business quicker, then it will be better to have 1,000 or more used books on hand before you start. Don’t be afraid to start with the books you already own, but stay on the lookout for more quick sellers to expand your business. Start-up funding will likely be a bootstrap venture in most cases. Two-thirds of all business start-ups like a home book store get funded by credit card cash advances, tapping into savings accounts, or borrowing from a rich uncle in the family. Tip: Sell things you don’t need any longer — furniture that’s in the way, FUNDING A HOME-BASED USED BOOKSTORE clothes you don’t wear any longer, or maybe hold a garage sale one weekend and clear the clutter around your house — and reinvest the proceeds into building your home book store. You don’t need much money to get started. If you’re starting out on a shoestring, start with whatever you have. List your books, CDs, or DVDs on the Amazon Marketplace, and begin learning what sells and what doesn’t. You’ll learn valuable experience in how this business works. You can then parlay You can sell used books, music CDs, and educational that experience and profit into videos to anyone, anywhere across the country or a larger business as you add around the world if you choose. more used book stock to your inventory. Getting started selling is easy. Just log you will then have found 300 or more onto the Amazon website and get your good books, and you’ll only have invested seller account up and running in a matter about $150, some gas for driving around, of minutes. and $50 for a couple sturdy bookshelves to hold your new inventory. STOCK UP ON MERCHANDISE THAT SELLS Tip: Use your cell phone with Internet Next: Give yourself a goal. For access to pull up Amazon used book instance, plan on spending two hours pricing when you are scouting out books every weekend for the next three months, for resale. If the pricing for like books scouring yard sales and thrift stores to is good — $7 or more — buy the book. locate at least 25 books, while paying no You’ll very often be able to list it and sell more than 50 cents each. By month four, it for more than $10–$15. Don’t be afraid to “ start with the books you already own, but stay on the lookout for more quick sellers to expand your business. ” Start with the books you already own, and add to them by attending library book sales and fund-raisers, estate sales, and thrift stores, and even search for them online or through newspaper classified ads. 36 Home Business ® If you do come home with books that you want to get rid of that you can’t use in your home bookstore, take them to a local used bookstore and ask the owner if they’ll trade for books you can add to your inventory. Sometimes if you’re lucky, the owner will buy your unwanted books by offering store credit for books he or she Continued on page 38 | July/August 2012 www. homebusinessmag.com
Start an Online Used Book Store.
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