Penny Books

There are many out there that don't understand why on earth someone would list a book for a penny. I must admit, years ago whe I was looking at buying online I was amazed and a little scared by this. I thought that it must be a mistake or a scam and either way I am staying away from it. Once I got into the book selling business I realized that sometimes these were really good deals and since have bought quite a few with no problems at all.

So why do sellers list them for a penny?

Heres why: A while ago, before I even got in the business, automatic repricers caught hold and if 2 sellers had automatic repricers on the same item, they would each undercut eachother a penny until the book was at the lowest price (.o1). Since the repricers weren't as smart as they are today, this brought a lot of books down to a penny and a lot have not recovered.

So your saying; that makes sense, but why wouldn't the seller just throw out those books?

Well, a lot of smart, smaller sellers will, but the big guys believe that they can make some money on these still. Its estimated that they can make as much as 40 cents on a penny book because the shipping credit outweighs the actual cost of shipping the book. The reason a large seller can do this and not a smaller one is because the larger seller can get bulk discounts on shipping supplies and even gets a bulk rate shipping discount from the usps (US postal service).

As always, feel free to respond! Have a good week and try to smile!