Listing help with selling multiple foreign books on eBay

[Shreddingbetty]

I’m finally taking the jump to sell a whole bunch of my kid’s French books on eBay. I’ve been too lazy and putting it off mostly because I don’t know what I’m doing and I didn’t have a printer. But now I do. 

So I figured out how to list one book by scanning ISBN number. And then I realized that most of my books will not pull up on eBay because they’re French books. I think I just put in the isbn number as a référence and then list the rest of the info myself. 

My main question I guess is how do I list a few book as a lot, not necessarily same series or author? Just list one isbn number and then free text all the other information?

And I realized I have one more question. When you list weight is their a way to do 8.4 oz? I saw one of the books I’m selling listed and it’s weight was .53 lb (8.4 oz) so there must be a way but it seems like you need to round up? 

Your help is greatly appreciated. I really need to start getting rid of some as I have a ton and there is not market for it where I live. 

thanks!

[Shreddingbetty]

Is there really no one here who can help me with this?

[ssmjlm]

Are you in the US? eBay just went through a huge change in their system after breaking away from PayPal.

If you are selling as a lot, I don’t know if you can skip the isbn or not.

Do you have a mailing or food scale? You will need to actually weigh your items PLUS all packaging and then round up to the nearest pound if they are over 1 lb. Media mail will be your easiest shipping method for books.

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 11:44:52 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Are you in the US? eBay just went through a huge change in their system after breaking away from PayPal.

If you are selling as a lot, I don’t know if you can skip the isbn or not.

Do you have a mailing or food scale? You will need to actually weigh your items PLUS all packaging and then round up to the nearest pound if they are over 1 lb. Media mail will be your easiest shipping method for books.

Yes I am in the US. What do you mean they broke away from PayPal?

i do have a kitchen scale I was just wondering about rounding as it seems like one listing I looked at was able to put in the exact weight as opposed to rounding. I guess it probably doesn’t make a huge difference if at all if you round up from for example 8.4 to 9 oz. I guess I didn’t think aboute packaging but I am assuming once you actually sold it you can probably change the weight to the accurate one once the packaging is done? And yes I do know about media mail. Seems pretty reasonable indeed

[ssmjlm]

Feb 21, 2021 12:08:59 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Feb 21, 2021 11:44:52 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Are you in the US? eBay just went through a huge change in their system after breaking away from PayPal.

If you are selling as a lot, I don’t know if you can skip the isbn or not.

Do you have a mailing or food scale? You will need to actually weigh your items PLUS all packaging and then round up to the nearest pound if they are over 1 lb. Media mail will be your easiest shipping method for books.

Yes I am in the US. What do you mean they broke away from PayPal?

i do have a kitchen scale I was just wondering about rounding as it seems like one listing I looked at was able to put in the exact weight as opposed to rounding. I guess it probably doesn’t make a huge difference if at all if you round up from for example 8.4 to 9 oz. I guess I didn’t think aboute packaging but I am assuming once you actually sold it you can probably change the weight to the accurate one once the packaging is done? And yes I do know about media mail. Seems pretty reasonable indeed

You can no longer be paid for your sales via PayPal. Must have bank acct info.

If you are having the buyer pay for shipping, it needs to be exact weight so eBay will charge the correct amount.

[Poeticxpassion]

Feb 21, 2021 0:55:17 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

So I figured out how to list one book by scanning ISBN number. And then I realized that most of my books will not pull up on eBay because they’re French books. I think I just put in the isbn number as a référence and then list the rest of the info myself. 

My main question I guess is how do I list a few book as a lot, not necessarily same series or author? Just list one isbn number and then free text all the other information?

And I realized I have one more question. When you list weight is their a way to do 8.4 oz? I saw one of the books I’m selling listed and it’s weight was .53 lb (8.4 oz) so there must be a way but it seems like you need to round up? 

Your help is greatly appreciated. I really need to start getting rid of some as I have a ton and there is not market for it where I live. 

thanks!

You would round up the weight when you purchase the shipping label. If something is 8.4, you enter 9 oz.

The way I sold books was I would search for the book on Google, Amazon, etc. I would copy and paste the book information into the eBay listing, so it had accurate information. This would include the ISBN. When you create the title for the listing, you can list the different titles there (as long as you don't go over the allotted number of characters.)

When listing books, you can list and mail them through Media Mail, which is for books only. It is a cheaper way to mail, but does take longer for the items to arrive.

[Poeticxpassion]

Shreddingbetty, also don't just weigh a book and enter that into the listing. The weight should include the box or envelope, packing material, tape, etc.

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 16:34:33 GMT -5 Poeticxpassion said:

Shreddingbetty , also don't just weigh a book and enter that into the listing. The weight should include the box or envelope, packing material, tape, etc.

Yes I realized that after the other poster mentioned that. Makes total sense I just didn’t think about it as they ask for weight and dimensions when you list and obviously you don’t have it packed yet at that point. I’m assuming it is so that they can put the shipping cost in the listing.

anyway, thanks for your replies, from the sounds of it I just free text everything when the isbn isn’t available on ebay. I’m sure it will take a few listings to get it all figured out

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 13:55:42 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Feb 21, 2021 12:08:59 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Yes I am in the US. What do you mean they broke away from PayPal?

i do have a kitchen scale I was just wondering about rounding as it seems like one listing I looked at was able to put in the exact weight as opposed to rounding. I guess it probably doesn’t make a huge difference if at all if you round up from for example 8.4 to 9 oz. I guess I didn’t think aboute packaging but I am assuming once you actually sold it you can probably change the weight to the accurate one once the packaging is done? And yes I do know about media mail. Seems pretty reasonable indeed

You can no longer be paid for your sales via PayPal. Must have bank acct info.

If you are having the buyer pay for shipping, it needs to be exact weight so eBay will charge the correct amount.

So I need to have a bank account attached in order to receive payment? I was actually thinking about doing that anyway but that’s good to know 

[qwerty]

Yes you now need to provide a bank account to eBay so that you can get paid. They take the 10% fee off the total sale and you get it directly from ebay. It now takes much longer to get paid than it did with PayPal.

In my experience shipping is where I’ve consistently been screwed by projecting too low an amount. I’ve started to build extra into my price to account for this. Also make sure you get tracking or else buyer can claim they never got it.

[lemoncupcake]

Are you in an area where french language education for kids is common? If so it would be 1000% easier to list them on local BST groups; then you don't have to deal with proper listings/shipping/etc.

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 17:59:49 GMT -5 lemoncupcake said:

Are you in an area where french language education for kids is common? If so it would be 1000% easier to list them on local BST groups; then you don't have to deal with proper listings/shipping/etc.

Nope unfortunately not. Locally there is nothing, 1.5 hours away they have immersion schools but then I would still have to ship. 

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 17:26:23 GMT -5 qwerty said:

Yes you now need to provide a bank account to eBay so that you can get paid. They take the 10% fee off the total sale and you get it directly from ebay. It now takes much longer to get paid than it did with PayPal.

In my experience shipping is where I’ve consistently been screwed by projecting too low an amount. I’ve started to build extra into my price to account for this. Also make sure you get tracking or else buyer can claim they never got it.

Do you get tracking if you have eBay do the labels for media mail? I would definitely want tracking. Does it cost extra?

[qwerty]

Feb 21, 2021 18:26:24 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Feb 21, 2021 17:26:23 GMT -5 qwerty said:

Yes you now need to provide a bank account to eBay so that you can get paid. They take the 10% fee off the total sale and you get it directly from ebay. It now takes much longer to get paid than it did with PayPal.

In my experience shipping is where I’ve consistently been screwed by projecting too low an amount. I’ve started to build extra into my price to account for this. Also make sure you get tracking or else buyer can claim they never got it.

Do you get tracking if you have eBay do the labels for media mail? I would definitely want tracking. Does it cost extra?

I think it does, however I am not positive. I only send priority mail and recently with all of the issues with the post office it takes forever to receive packages.

[wanderingback]

Feb 21, 2021 18:25:18 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Feb 21, 2021 17:59:49 GMT -5 lemoncupcake said:

Are you in an area where french language education for kids is common? If so it would be 1000% easier to list them on local BST groups; then you don't have to deal with proper listings/shipping/etc.

Nope unfortunately not. Locally there is nothing, 1.5 hours away they have immersion schools but then I would still have to ship. 

Couldn't you just ship a whole box of books to them? I'm sure they would appreciate it.
Also, all the local libraries where I've lived have had kid books in multiple languages. I often pick up kids books in french. So that's another option. 
To me that seems easier than trying to list stuff on eBay and having to keep shipping stuff if the goal is to get rid of the books.

[ohgillian]

I would do this on Mercari, not ebay. It’s just so much easier to use.

[georgeglass]

I would look to see where books like yours are actually selling and for how much. If you see movement on ebay, list there. Otherwise, you are going to be frustrated and waste a lot of your time.

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 18:36:31 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Feb 21, 2021 18:25:18 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Nope unfortunately not. Locally there is nothing, 1.5 hours away they have immersion schools but then I would still have to ship. 

Couldn't you just ship a whole box of books to them? I'm sure they would appreciate it.
Also, all the local libraries where I've lived have had kid books in multiple languages. I often pick up kids books in french. So that's another option. 
To me that seems easier than trying to list stuff on eBay and having to keep shipping stuff if the goal is to get rid of the books.

I am not interested in donating as I invested a lot of money in the books and I continue to buy more. That several hundreds of dollars that I could use to buy more books. Plus I’m part of a few French american Facebook groups so probably wouldn’t be hard to find customers.  So I guess the goal is not just to get rid of them but to get money back from them to reinvest in more books. I realize I didn’t make that clear

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 18:48:07 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

I would do this on Mercari, not ebay. It’s just so much easier to use.

I don’t know anything about them, this is the first I have heard of them. Do you use them? Are they reliable?  How is it easier to use (I am not saying it isn’t as I know nothing about them, just wondering...)
I am open to other suggestions. 

[winecat]

Feb 22, 2021 0:36:26 GMT -5 Shreddingbetty said:

Feb 21, 2021 18:36:31 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Couldn't you just ship a whole box of books to them? I'm sure they would appreciate it.
Also, all the local libraries where I've lived have had kid books in multiple languages. I often pick up kids books in french. So that's another option. 
To me that seems easier than trying to list stuff on eBay and having to keep shipping stuff if the goal is to get rid of the books.

I am not interested in donating as I invested a lot of money in the books and I continue to buy more. That several hundreds of dollars that I could use to buy more books. Plus I’m part of a few French american Facebook groups so probably wouldn’t be hard to find customers.  So I guess the goal is not just to get rid of them but to get money back from them to reinvest in more books. I realize I didn’t make that clear

Do the groups ban buying/selling related educational material?  I'd sell through them if you can. 

[minzy]

I don’t have much helpful to add, but I wish you luck. I have been trying to offload thousands of donated books on behalf of a nonprofit. Two people this past week have told me they’re essentially worthless, not worth the truck rental, hauling, storage and labor costs to sift through. Hopefully yours already are the “needle in a haystack” that have some real value.

[winecat]

minzy- I donated a bunch of books (and magazines) to the local county library. Their volunteer services organization runs a book delivery service to their patients and families who are staying/visiting the hospital. It was only a few hundred so I don't know if thousands would overwhelm them but they were thrilled; like visibly excited when they started unloading my car. The local VA hospital would have taken them too but I live closer to the other one. (The VA hospital took my old DVDs and CDs.) If you haven't tried your local hospitals, give them a call. Since they have volunteers, the labor costs might matter.*

*This was all pre-COVID, obviously.

[icedcoffee]

Feb 21, 2021 18:48:07 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

I would do this on Mercari, not ebay. It’s just so much easier to use.

Yes, this. I used to sell on eBay and I moved to mercari about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. It is so much easier. It’s app based. Very easy to photograph from your phone. Easy to enter the info and adjust prices. The best part though is that their fee structure is so much easier to follow. They tell you exactly how much your profit will be before you even list.

And the shipping is much more straight forward. You enter the weight and they calculate and send you the label.

It’s just simpler than eBay in just about every way.

[ohgillian]

Feb 22, 2021 8:52:36 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Feb 21, 2021 18:48:07 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

I would do this on Mercari, not ebay. It’s just so much easier to use.

Yes, this. I used to sell on eBay and I moved to mercari about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. It is so much easier. It’s app based. Very easy to photograph from your phone. Easy to enter the info and adjust prices. The best part though is that their fee structure is so much easier to follow. They tell you exactly how much your profit will be before you even list.

And the shipping is much more straight forward. You enter the weight and they calculate and send you the label.

It’s just simpler than eBay in just about every way.

Shreddingbetty , I would ditto everything here. I also sold on ebay previously and moved to Mercari about 2 years ago. I would never go back to selling on ebay for all of the reasons that icedcoffee laid out. 

ETA: I will say that for selling something like books, I choose the "ship on your own" option because media mail rates are much cheaper than other rates, and this lets you spend less on shipping. I print my shipping labels thru paypal; I definitely do not go to the post office b/c nobody has time for that. www.paypal.com/shiplabel/create/

[icedcoffee]

Feb 22, 2021 8:59:41 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

Feb 22, 2021 8:52:36 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Yes, this. I used to sell on eBay and I moved to mercari about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. It is so much easier. It’s app based. Very easy to photograph from your phone. Easy to enter the info and adjust prices. The best part though is that their fee structure is so much easier to follow. They tell you exactly how much your profit will be before you even list.

And the shipping is much more straight forward. You enter the weight and they calculate and send you the label.

It’s just simpler than eBay in just about every way.

Shreddingbetty, I would ditto everything here. I also sold on ebay previously and moved to Mercari about 2 years ago. I would never go back to selling on ebay for all of the reasons that icedcoffee laid out. 

I’ve had a few instances on eBay where after shipping I actually broke even or lost money on the transaction. So frustrating and that would never happen on Mercari unless you offered free shipping (which I never do).

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 21, 2021 19:51:38 GMT -5 georgeglass said:

I would look to see where books like yours are actually selling and for how much. If you see movement on ebay, list there. Otherwise, you are going to be frustrated and waste a lot of your time.

I actually think I will be able to move them.  I got a lot of my French books on ebay.  I am on a few FB groups for french americans so could post my "store" link there. Not a lot of decent priced options for French books especially little kids books. 

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 22, 2021 6:18:47 GMT -5 minzy said:

I don’t have much helpful to add, but I wish you luck. I have been trying to offload thousands of donated books on behalf of a nonprofit. Two people this past week have told me they’re essentially worthless, not worth the truck rental, hauling, storage and labor costs to sift through. Hopefully yours already are the “needle in a haystack” that have some real value.

I think they will move.  I got a lot of my kid books off ebay and decently priced french kid books are hard to find in the US. So i think there is a market.  I have looked at some of the books on amazon and ebay and a lot of them are listed for kind of high to be honest.  I'm not looking to make a killing, just to get a decent price and reinvest in other books 

[emilyinchile]

Why not just post the books directly to the FB groups? Then you just have to take pictures and set your prices, you can group them as lots however you want, have the option to offer a discount if someone wants several, and you can still get paid through PayPal. I've never sold something on eBay, but it sounds like a ton of work vs making a couple FB posts.

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 22, 2021 8:52:36 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Feb 21, 2021 18:48:07 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

I would do this on Mercari, not ebay. It’s just so much easier to use.

Yes, this. I used to sell on eBay and I moved to mercari about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. It is so much easier. It’s app based. Very easy to photograph from your phone. Easy to enter the info and adjust prices. The best part though is that their fee structure is so much easier to follow. They tell you exactly how much your profit will be before you even list.

And the shipping is much more straight forward. You enter the weight and they calculate and send you the label.

It’s just simpler than eBay in just about every way.

Thanks, I am going to check it out more. I watched some youtube videos and it looks pretty good and easy to use. 

[Shreddingbetty]

Feb 22, 2021 8:59:41 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

Feb 22, 2021 8:52:36 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Yes, this. I used to sell on eBay and I moved to mercari about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. It is so much easier. It’s app based. Very easy to photograph from your phone. Easy to enter the info and adjust prices. The best part though is that their fee structure is so much easier to follow. They tell you exactly how much your profit will be before you even list.

And the shipping is much more straight forward. You enter the weight and they calculate and send you the label.

It’s just simpler than eBay in just about every way.

Shreddingbetty , I would ditto everything here. I also sold on ebay previously and moved to Mercari about 2 years ago. I would never go back to selling on ebay for all of the reasons that icedcoffee laid out. 

ETA: I will say that for selling something like books, I choose the "ship on your own" option because media mail rates are much cheaper than other rates, and this lets you spend less on shipping. I print my shipping labels thru paypal; I definitely do not go to the post office b/c nobody has time for that. www.paypal.com/shiplabel/create/

on one of the videos I watched they mentioned that they thought you could only do ship your own if you offered free shipping but from what you are saying here that doesn't seem to be the case? several people also mentioned Pirate ship for shipping which looks pretty good.  
and if I understand correctly people can pay you through paypal or through mercari and if they pay you through mercari then mercari will transfer your funds when you request (after having been paid of course)

They also seem to really recommend free shipping for buyers.  What are your thoughts on that? If I did that I would increase the price of the books so is it just a selling point I take it?