Some Buyer Tips

As the buying frenzy winds down, the prices are beginning to drop back down to normal levels for many of the books. I can tell because I've bought several books in the last few days at low prices, and I've seen other listings close at reasonable prices. This was not happening a month ago.

As things get back to normal, sellers are once again going to have to try to convince the buyers of how valuable theirs books are. I RAREly buy from sellers who try to convince me of the value of their books. It is probably because I already have all of those books! Also, sometimes the seller bought the book from me, so of course I'm not going to buy the book back at a higher price!

One of the ways that sellers make their books sound valuable is to put a book up for sale for $50.00 and state that the Farah's Guide value is $200.00 or whatever. The Farah's Guide values are almost always well above what the books actually sell for on eBay, and this is just a ploy to get buyers to think the book is more valuable. After all, if the actual value of the book is $200.00, wouldn't the seller try to get that much instead? Why start it low or have a low Buy It Now and tell the buyers that it is worth so much more? These sellers are trying to sell their books, not get their buyers a good deal.

Another method is when sellers state that their books are worth a certain amount (usually in the hundreds of dollars) because of the prices on the Advanced Book Exchange, Alibris, or any other fixed-price site. These sellers are using the fixed-price sites like a price guide so that buyers will think the books are very valuable. The prices on the fixed-price sites are the prices for books that have not actually sold. Often, the prices on those sites will be ten times more than the actual value of the books. Using those sites as a database for value will tell you nothing.

Actually, the fixed-price sites will tell you when you have a worthless book. If you do a search for a worthless book, you may see hundreds of them priced at around $1.00. That's how you know that a book has no value. Using the flashlight edition of The Secret of the Old Clock as an example, on Abebooks.com there are currently 122 flashlight editions of Old Clock priced at $1.00. We can safely conclude that the flashlight edition of Old Clock is worth no more than $1.00.

Let's go the other way. The highest price on ABE for a flashlight edition of Old Clock is $38.21. I'm sure most people would agree that no one is going to pay $38.21 for the flashlight edition of Old Clock. Someone could list one on eBay and state that it is worth around $40.00 because there is one on ABE for nearly that amount.

While I was checking Old Clock, I found a listing for the twin thriller edition of Old Clock/Hidden Staircase from the late 1970s. That listing is priced at $99.99. Someone could list one of those on eBay and state that it is worth around $100.00 because of the ABE listing.

It's just like when a person visits used bookstores and antique shops. For the most part, the merchandise is grossly overpriced and will still be there months later. If the dealers didn't overprice the merchandise, there would be nothing left in the store. Fixed price websites like the Advanced Book Exchange are like online antique shops. Most of the prices are very high, and most of the books will never sell.

I hope I've made my point.

What makes eBay great is that in the auctions, there is a constant turnover of what is up for sale. Even when a seller has to relist a few times, the book will usually sell so long as the price is somewhere near what the book is worth. While I regularly check ABE and the eBay Stores and buy from both, I love checking the auctions the best because I never know what I'm going to find.