A house competing against itself?
The other day, I discovered something that any savvy college student should know by now, but which had somehow escaped my attention: You can sell college textbooks on Amazon.com, eBay, Half.com, and other places and get a lot more money than you'd get by selling them back to the college bookstore.
This is, in itself, no great revelation -- eBay is a great place to turn just about anything into cash, because it lets you reach so many buyers that you're bound to find someone who'll be interested in the item and give you decent money for it. But the one that surprised me was that Amazon does it, with their zShops area.
When you call up a listing for any book on Amazon, they give you a button that says "Sell yours here." If you do that, it gives you an easy way to set up an on-line listing for your used copy of the book.
When you sell a book this way, Amazon takes a cut of the proceeds -- but not a large one. I just listed my old cost accounting textbook for sale, at $20 (it's an obsolete edition), and if it sells, Amazon's commission is only $5.19.
You have to wonder about this business model. In Tom Friedman's excellent book, The World is Flat, he says, "I used to love Amazon.com, until I found out they were selling used copies of my books." Used bookstores, competing with retailers and publishers selling new books, is one thing... but by selling used books on its own site, Amazon is competing against itself. The price of a used accounting textbook is typically much less than that of a new book -- in some cases, not all that much less, but from Amazon's point of view, it's hugely reduced, because they're only taking a small commission. That cost accounting book I just listed sells, new, for $158.20, but you can buy a used copy (this is for a newer edition than the one I'm selling) for $39.95. So Amazon's commission on that book should be around $10, based on what they're offering me for my old book priced at $20.
I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in the executive suite when Amazon decided to implement this policy. Granted, used books are a line of business that's out there, and someone's going to be selling them no matter what you do -- but I'm sure there was some lively debate over whether Amazon should go into that business themselves. After all, how many people are going to pay $158.20 for a new book when they can get a used copy of the same book for $39.95? Perhaps the logic is that Amazon's costs are much lower when they sell used books -- they don't touch the physical book, so there's no shipping-and-handling to worry about -- but still, I'm not sure I'd want to be the executive who advocated doing it.
Urb's Blog
This is, in itself, no great revelation -- eBay is a great place to turn just about anything into cash, because it lets you reach so many buyers that you're bound to find someone who'll be interested in the item and give you decent money for it. But the one that surprised me was that Amazon does it, with their zShops area.
When you call up a listing for any book on Amazon, they give you a button that says "Sell yours here." If you do that, it gives you an easy way to set up an on-line listing for your used copy of the book.
When you sell a book this way, Amazon takes a cut of the proceeds -- but not a large one. I just listed my old cost accounting textbook for sale, at $20 (it's an obsolete edition), and if it sells, Amazon's commission is only $5.19.
You have to wonder about this business model. In Tom Friedman's excellent book, The World is Flat, he says, "I used to love Amazon.com, until I found out they were selling used copies of my books." Used bookstores, competing with retailers and publishers selling new books, is one thing... but by selling used books on its own site, Amazon is competing against itself. The price of a used accounting textbook is typically much less than that of a new book -- in some cases, not all that much less, but from Amazon's point of view, it's hugely reduced, because they're only taking a small commission. That cost accounting book I just listed sells, new, for $158.20, but you can buy a used copy (this is for a newer edition than the one I'm selling) for $39.95. So Amazon's commission on that book should be around $10, based on what they're offering me for my old book priced at $20.
I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in the executive suite when Amazon decided to implement this policy. Granted, used books are a line of business that's out there, and someone's going to be selling them no matter what you do -- but I'm sure there was some lively debate over whether Amazon should go into that business themselves. After all, how many people are going to pay $158.20 for a new book when they can get a used copy of the same book for $39.95? Perhaps the logic is that Amazon's costs are much lower when they sell used books -- they don't touch the physical book, so there's no shipping-and-handling to worry about -- but still, I'm not sure I'd want to be the executive who advocated doing it.
Urb's Blog
posted by Urbie at 8:13 AM
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