« February Month-End Financial Update | Main | Crazy Week on Wall Street »
My Library Grows
By Jay | March 8, 2008
It’s a rainy Saturday in Brooklyn, and I’ve been using it to catch up on some outstanding tasks, including writing my first blog entry in a week. Things have been a bit slow on my blog, but have been very busy elsewhere.
I’ve just finished listing another 25 books, and am up to 300 books in my virtual online bookstore. So far they’ve been selling at a pretty good clip, too. Not enough to live on, but a bit extra for the emergency fund. Every penny helps.
I am also at a stage where I think I can stop buying and listing now. So far the business has paid for itself, but any extra money I get I’ve turned around and bought more books with. It’s funny, I used to think, “oh great, I found another $50 in books!” Now I’m just watching my inventory grow, in size and in value. Where does that end? I guess when my basement is full of books….
It would be nice to hit a happy medium where I had a consistent inventory of 300 books and average sales of $1500 per month, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Instead, I get bursts of sales — 15, 20 books in a day, and then nothing for 3-4 days. And then I’m always finding new books. They’re only $2-$4 each, but that adds up when you buy 300 books. And some of them will take a few months to sell. I feel compelled to take advantage of the deals when they present themselves, but at the same time it’s taking money away from my emergency fund and putting it into inventory.
Maybe I’m ready for the next step: to find a product to buy wholesale and sell retail. But what would be a good thing to sell? It would really suck to take a couple thousand in book profits and buy something that I end up having to give away to friends. I remember when I was a kid, friends of my parents got involved in selling some kind of cleaning product called Swipe. It never took off and they had a garage full of Swipe for months. My parents took pity and bought a case or two, but I don’t think anyone else did.
The hardest thing is that I am working full time and then some, which makes it difficult to dedicate the hours I need to spend on my own business. At the same time though this probably isn’t the worst thing. I have the steady income that my job produces, and the opportunity to experiment with online sales.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Stumble it!
Topics: Book Selling, Business, Finance |
March 10th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Wow - you are ambitious! I am jealous of your energy - do you feel like this is worth “your time?” I ask because I have done things on the side as well, but when I figure in the time I ended up making a few dollars an hour. Is it worth it??
March 10th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Sounds like this idea of yours is doing quite well Jay, keep it up and you might find you’ve got enough money to stock your future side businesses.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Thanks Matt, that’s the hope.
Hi Beth! Yes, so far I do feel that it’s worth my time. I’m not making a fortune with it, but I’ve figured out that in the past month I’ve made about $20 per hour that I’ve put in.
This isn’t a lot (at least not in New York City), but the learning experience has more than made up for the low earnings. There’s a learning curve when it comes to selling on the internet, and a mentality that one has to have when understanding merchandising — what sells, price per item sold (which has a huge impact on how much I end up working), inventory turnover rate, etc. And then the idea of building my own business, making my own money, rather than depending solely on a paycheck every 2 weeks. All in all the learning experience has been the best part of this!