Friday, January 23, 2009

Antique shop books

I know that people are always searching for new places to buy inventory, so I thought that might be an interesting thing for me to write about. I myself had been looking for new places to look. I had originally had a business model where I would go in after a sale was over and pay a bargain price for the remaining books. I found that too be a bit of a hit or miss though. Some sales it would be great with lots of pre-isbn numbers that couldn't be tagged by the scanners, but most were just filled with penny books. I got myself a scanner and decided to be the first there and take home all the great books. That has actually worked for me several times. One time in particular I was able to find almost $2000 in inventory within three hours (I had to leave after that since I had a big test back at college..). When there weren't good sales going on though I had to rely on going to thrift shops and hoping to find a good deal there. Which is hir or miss.

Recently I had a free day and on a whim decided to hit up the local antique shop. I found a large section of books from several dealers. I hadn't really dealt in the area of antique books before so I decided I was going to learn. I picked out books that I thought were going to be real winners and took pictures of them with my cell phone. I ran (well, drove) home and looked them up. I actually had a pretty good nack for what was good. I ended up finding just under $1000 of books there. It was a much different model then what I was used too. While at the other book sale I was talking about where I found $2000 of inventory, it costed me $100 for several boxes of books. At the antique shop, it cost me around $70 for 9 books.

I'll keep you posted on any other ideas.

Endicia update

Endicia has been working moderately well for me. I have been able to save a lot of my time and a lot more of my mom's time using their software. I was really concerned if I messed up the postage at first if I would be able to get that money back, but it looks like it will be fine since there is an option on there to get an e-refund for items with delivery confirmation or you will need to mail in the problem items to them for a refund. I have had to do both methods already. I haven't recieved my money yet, but I'm confident I will.

I actually had to make an unexpected visit home today because the printer "wasn't working." Turns out the cord was just far enough out of the power brick that it wouldn't turn on. Those are the times you just laugh and try not too think about it too much.