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How to Heartlessly Arbitrage Used Books With a PDA
Pickens writes "Michael Savitz writes at Salon how he makes a living armed with a laser bar-code scanner fitted to a Dell PDA. Savitz haunts thrift stores and library book sales to scan hundreds of used books a day and instantly identify those that will get a good price on Amazon Marketplace. 'My PDA shows the range of prices that other Amazon sellers are asking for the book in question,' writes Savitz. 'Those listings offer me guidance on what price to set when I post the book myself and how much I'm likely to earn when the sale goes through.' Savitz writes that on average, only one book in 30 will have a resale value that makes it a "BUY" but that he goes through enough books to average about 30 books sold per day. 'If I can tell from a book's Amazon sales rank that I'll be able to sell it in one day, I might accept a projected profit of as little as a dollar. The more difficult a book will be to sell, the more money the sale needs to promise.' Savitz writes that people scanning books sometimes get kicked out of thrift stores and retail shops and that libraries are beginning to advertise that no electronic devices are allowed at their sales. 'If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work?' concludes Savitz."
Supply and demand. Now if he was scanning them and making torrents, that would be shameless.
Sure, you can go through all those second-hand bookstores and strip them of anything will make a profit. It makes the store less interesting for the rest of us, who actually want to read the books we find. I like the search, which may turn up a treasure I recognise, or may turn up something obscure that I, but virtually nobody else, want to read. To put it another way, it's why Firefly was canned. Lots of us thought it was good, but not enough to turn a quick profit. There's a lot of instant-hit cheap crap on TV. Please don't do this to bookstores as well.
Savitz writes that people scanning books sometimes get kicked out of thrift stores and retail shops and that libraries are beginning to advertise that no electronic devices are allowed at their sales. 'If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work?' concludes Savitz."
Perhaps the people running these sales want them to have more of a community feel, and either anticipate or know from past experience that allowing professional sellers to come in and take on-the-spot digital assessments of books will disrupt the existing selling environment.
Here are some potential motivations for the ban that I can think up off the top of my head:
coding is life
People buy books at thrift stores and library sales because they love books. People donate books to libraries because they want to share their love of books. If this becomes any popular, it will drive the price up for one thing; it will take the books from people who might pick one up because it's cheap, and love it, and put it in the hands of people who are trying to make a profit from it. Because as with everything, it takes something that people do for love of knowledge, art, or craft, and pollute it with people who don't care for it at all, just for the money it represents. That is why you feel shame doing it. Not to mention that if this becomes really profitable, how long until publishers, editors and authors see the "lost profits" and crack down on it like they are doing with music and movies? Once again, thank you for ruining it for the rest of us for the sake of your short term greed.
The added value is that customers looking for a specific book can find a second-hand seller online. I sometimes buy 2nd hand scientific books (the kind that costs $200 new) online; no way that I would consider visiting 20 second-hand stores around here for the faint chance that one of them happens to have that book on the shelf.
The smart thrift store owner would scan the books by themselves and increase the price and/or put them online.
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" 'If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work?' concludes Savitz."
Because it makes you a bottom-feeder. And no one likes bottom-feeders. You're taking the generosity and good will of others who are trying to help the less fortunate and turning it into your own personal profit machine. What, has the "stealing candy from babies and reselling it online" market dried up so quickly? This is right up there with people that go around to thrift stores buying up all the decent items and reselling them for 10-100x more in their "antique" stores, leaving nothing but crap for those that are in need. Sorry dude, but you're a scum-sucking lowlife.
You don't think there is significant value in him making the books available online where people that want them can find them, then sending the book to the person who wants it?
Taking goods from a place where there is less demand to a place where there is more absolutely adds value - it causes more economic activity to happen which is good for the economy as a whole.
Look at it this way - one of those books, sitting on a shelf in a store is not helping anyone.
This guy buys the book from the store at a price that the store thinks is fair (since they set it), then sells it to someone who wants it at a price that they think is fair (since they choose to buy it).
So, everyone is transacting at a price that they think is fair and everyone is gaining. The store gets cash for their book that was taking up shelf space. The eventual purchaser gets a book that they want. The middle man makes a profit.
Where is the problem?
I can't see anything at all wrong with this. This is a classic business connecting a group of buyers and sellers who wouldn't have otherwise been connected. The sellers get their book sale and the buyers get their book at a reasonable price. Everyone wins. No different from any other shop that buys at factory price and sells at retail price.
He is increasing the availability of sought-after books. Many's the time I've wanted to buy a book from ANYWHERE and not managed it for months only to find it years later on a boot sale or second hand shop (as an example, I once had a copy of Geoffrey Trease's "The Black Banner Players" pass through my hands - one of the rarest books in the world - and incidentally apparently one of the crappiest). The book has a lot more value being able to be purchased from anywhere in the world for the price of postage, especially if it is actually sought-after because it's rare, expensive, limited print run, in a country that doesn't normally sell it, etc.
I don't really see the problem with what he's doing. If I had the time / money / inclination, it sounds like a good way to earn money and always has. My ex used to trawl boot-sales (think garage sales or flea markets if you're American) just before they closed. All the stuff the sellers would normally throw away or put back in their attic for another year would be snapped up for a few pounds for huge bags full. Then she'd sort through them, take out anything of good quality (usually things like baby clothes which are ridiculously expensive when new), wash it, iron it, and sell it on eBay for 50p - £1 per item. Nobody was stopped from buying that stuff from the boot sale itself, but the locality of it meant that most of the young, poor mothers in the country couldn't viably buy the item. The extra value wasn't from washing / ironing (that cost money and rarely made much of a difference because stained tended to stay stained) but from the availability of that item to anyone in the UK. Getting an item for 5p isn't a bargain if it would cost you £40 in fuel to pick it up and there was absolutely no guarantee you wouldn't have a wasted journey. But having someone local pick up all the spare items, and offer them for the price of a stamp to the entire country, with full descriptions and photographs, is more than worth £1 or £2. Profit for my ex, profit for the boot sale seller from stuff they would throw away, profit for eBay, ultra cheap baby clothes that are described exactly and the bad stuff already weeded out for every young mother online.
The value is the availability, and the initial search. He adds that value by doing something completely legal that ANYONE with a brain, or a knowledge of their subject, could do. Every boot sale I've ever been to, there is a queue from 6:30am of various local experts and businesses that swoop in, buy all the good stuff and are onto the next boot sale within ten minutes, because they can recognise the valuable items immediately and snap them up for a good price that the seller is happy with. Many admit that they will then go on to sell that item for near-new prices in their shops. Same thing, slightly less "ethical" and slightly more "business" but hell - they make money, the seller makes money, nobody gets hurt and someone else gets what they consider a bargain when they rebuy it from their specialist shop (because that's easier than trawling boot sales in the hope you'll find some item you're after).
As someone for whom the web is the only place I can find such "treasures" in their original language (I'm not from an English speaking country), stopping him from doing what he's doing deprives me from actually reading the books.
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Because if books start selling themselves for a profit, that would be prostitution, which is illegal.
If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work?
If it's possible to make a decent living giving unjustified loans/selling alcohol or drugs/etc. to people who're already down, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work?
Seriously, you're being a leech, a bottom feeder, and you're right in feeling ashamed. Actually, that feeling speaks for you - there's hope for you yet, maybe.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
This may come as a shock, but the summary isn't *gasp* fully accurate. Scanners are allowed at the library sale they say forbids it. It's actually rather interesting-- the early "member's only" hour forbids scanners, then they let scanners in during the open sale hours. So it's a nice compromise between "let people browse" and "let the book sellers make a profit", they're just giving first crack to readers, then a fair shake to sellers afterwards. Neat compromise, that.
A.
Two things:
Someone will make up a better way and sell it to the bigger book stores and thrift stores. The will relegate this to a smaller and smaller pool, as competition (thanks to articles like this) heats up for the dwindling supply of non-internet-enabled stores.
Second: the pay sucks. This guy, who admits that you can make up to $1000 a week (more if you employ your family/other people) spends 80 hours doing all the work, including listing, selling, and mailing.
Okay...so he's grossing $12.50 hr, on average. Great. When the economy picks up and he can get a "real" job paying him twice that, this option will probably go away. Presuming he's not ADHD or otherwise impaired, anyone with this kind of organizational skill is probably going to be gold for somebody who can pay him $45-60k/yr plus benefits. For 40-50 hours a week of work. He'll get his life back (presuming he ever had one), and get better pay and benefits.
This is the depression era trashpicker. They will always exist, but it's mostly a fad that rears its head in bad times. The only twist to it is that the internet has made the trashpickers job "clean".
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
> The seller finds that correcting the information balance by limiting
> information access to the buyer is easier than correcting it by having
> to access that information themselves.
Easier than having access? The only ease of access that PDA guy has in his favor is the laser barcode scanner; which saves him all of five seconds of typing the UPC into a search engine. We're not talking about information asymmetry here. We're talking about a guy who's willing to put in a modicum of effort vs. the sheer laziness of others.
I comparison shop with my iPhone all the time. And the closest thing to flack I've ever gotten from a brick and mortar store is a polite request to let them try to match the offer if I find a better price online. Informed consumers via always-on portable internet access are a fact of life in this day and age. Businesses need to adapt or die.
Imagine all the people...
I work for a company that is in the used book business. I meet with the people who run the local thrift stores, and the local friends-of-the-library sales. They are very open about why they don't welcome these people to their sales/stores.
The reason people with scanners are not welcome is because they are disruptive and rude to other patrons. Typically these people show up and are waiting when the doors open, they come in and lay claim to an entire section of shelves, or display table and begin sorting into piles by price-point. They stay for hours, and systematically move through the entire inventory. They take up a lot of space, prevent other customers from accessing the merchandise and leave a big mess behind for the staff to clean up.
The reason they don't scan the books and sell them online themselves is because they don't have the staff to do it. It is a great business as a sideline, easy to do, low overhead, moderate profitability. It is an enormous amount of work to do on a larger scale. Many of the chain thrift shops are expanding into online sales, but the smaller ones do not have the resources. Library sales are typically staffed by volunteers with one or two actual employees overseeing the process -they don't have the staff to do more.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin