Just wondering though how u manage to photograph thousands of books for your listings? As someone who is a boutique sole trader, I just don't have the time to list hundreds per day since it would realistically take me two or three hours just to complete FIVE listings - and that's once I have prepared the material as my lots involve alot of montage-like arrangements since they are not books as such. So one picture montage would take a long time to arrange since my store sells a different line of product and one that is more of an art in some ways than simply selling books. But even with the kinds of items I sell, I notice there are people who can simply list hundreds of listings so it seems in such a short time, that it almost seems impossible, unless they have other ppl helping them of course. I enjoyed watching your video btw. All the best! 👍
Years ago when i hit around 5k in books i ran into big organization issues. I was spending way too much time trying to organize and find them when they sold. I then switched to a simple number system. No letters. No alphabetical. Just shelf 1, 2, 3. Etc. This way in the future no matter if u move to a bigger warehouse or whatever the case might be the number system will fit anywhere. We have numbered totes, numbered shelves, so simple. This has worked very well for us for 20 years. Also anyone can pull orders. So new employees can be trained to pull orders within a few minutes
Thanks so much for your feedback, high levels of books really does take a huge amount of time and organising and I think people underestimate that side of it. Because I use a VA to help me list it's been faster to not have to worry about giving her SKU numbers but as some of the shelves grow I can see it becoming more of an issue as my book numbers grow. I really appreciate your feedback and tips.
I would recommend standing the books up like on a normal bookcase as much as possible. A few reasons, in my experience: • Easier to pick orders; just grab one book without having to touch the others. Moving stacks each time increases chance of wear and damage. Some books take a long, long time to sell and you want them to remain as described. • Stacks can sometimes be put left in the wrong place when busy, causing problems down the line. • Overhanging paperbacks can develop bends. Slim large-format paperbacks (like picture books) get spine-roll. The bottom book's back cover gets scratched up (to prevent this, put a scrap of cardboard underneath). Any little bits of grit between books cause ugly indentations or scratches. • Less damage from stacks getting knocked over. • Easier to sort and add new inventory. I use Ikea Kallax bookcases which are deep enough to have a row of books standing at the back with a stack of newly-added inventory in front. Gaps from sold items are instantly filled from the stack with the new book going in exactly the right place. A neat stack would be ordered from big on the bottom to small on the top or all the same size together. This means that neatness is always fighting against your ordering system. Standing books can be perfectly neat and in the perfect order at the same time.
I really appreciate your content Mel. It’s so direct and honest and no B.S and that’s rare on TH-cam these days. Good luck with the business :) I’m about to start up my own!
I have about 3000 books at the moment after I bought the contents of a second hand book store (started with about 10K books!!). I use 50ltr tubs just marked from 1 - 60. There is no sorting beyond that. A book gets listed goes where there is space. In 8 years of selling books, have I have never lost 1!! It's a simple system without having to worry about alphabetical order etc. Depending on the size & thickness of the books will depend on how may you can fit in.
@@backfromburnout i have 50 tubs in my shed that are stacked 3 high. The other 20 are in my ebay storage room in shelves which are a lot easier to handle. Some of the tubs are heavy, some not so bad!!
Hey there . I too have a large inventory of listed books. I finally came up with .... for me.... the simplest way to store listed books by SKU. I just started at number 101 and moved up from there. I’m at 6000 ish now. As I sell down my inventory once a month or so start at the lowest Sku shelf and consolidate to take up the space for sold items and re label each shelf from lowest to highest Sku on each. I hope that made sense . To me it’s easier than searching the letter “m”shelf for an author. My time pulling sold books has dropped immensely.
John this is awesome. Thank you for replying. Can I ask did you go back and inventory all the old stock listed from scratch or did you start from the new stock you listed?
How do you SKU them also. With a sticker on the spine or a piece of paper sticking out of them? Do you stand your books up lay them flat. I’d love if you could send me a photo either on Instagram or via email backfromburnoutmel@gmail.com
Thanks for sharing these vids Mel. To see your hard work and dedication pay off is great to see. Considering you have to look after a family as well as streamline and grow your biz is inspirational. You deserve all the respect and success in the world!
Not sure if someone's already suggested this. You could loosely alphabetize your m row. Put ma on 1st part of shelf then end with mz on 6th shelf. Even if it weren't exactly alphabetized you'd still narrow down shelves you had to dig through. Love your videos thanks.
Media items like books and DVD's are difficult to store. A few years ago I switched over to closed steel shelving system with thinner shelves and more rows (8-9 shelves per unit) because it makes the product easier to find. Thinner shelves and more rows may be a solution for you. The boltless shelves are difficult because there's no back or sides so you can't maximize the space per shelf. It was expensive to switch over to closed shelving (like in a library) but you can store much more product in the same space. Hope that helps and great video by the way. I really enjoy seeing how others run their business and the challenges we all face as entrepreneurs.
List books in batches and add that to sku batch25 say. Put the batch together on any shelf you like but mark on spreadsheet where batch 25 is. We find a book in minutes out of 4000 and it's flexible as you can put the batch on any shelf and move it if you need to as long as you update the spreadsheet. It's really simple. We made a spreadsheet that has a map of the shelves on it. You can type in the batch your looking for and it highlights the shelf on the map.
Mel, have you considered adding locked wheels to the bottom of the racks? That way if you needed to move shelves around you wouldn't have to remove all the books, just unlock and roll.
I commented on one of your posts the other day on Instagram. We have roughly 11k books listed at the moment on tons of websites, we use Neatoscan to list on multi platforms. Me personally I wouldn’t recommend the alphabetical system, I’ve been there and don’t that and I had to restart from the beginning. Books get lost and books get put in the wrong spots. If it were me, for now try a numbering system like a little slip of paper in each book and put them on their spines. Just my two cents! Love the vids
Thanks so much. I guess this has been working for me as the VA does all my listings and I don’t have to worry about giving her SKUs. I just photograph and pop them all onto the shelves with the author surname. But I can see as I grow further it might not keep working this way. Thanks so much for your tips and the idea. I certainly have a lot of things to think about
Goodness Mel, you sure have a TON of books!! 😂. But glad to see the video. I have landed on so many books myself, and in my 2 bedroom home 🏠 I am packed FULL with stuff from family and my quilting/sewing room. I have as of right now these books out on my carport that will be put into the garage just so I can move a bit on my carport. Ugh 😩 what a mess.
Yes, it's just easier at the moment as I then don't have to give my VA and SKU details. Once I move to SKU numbers it's another step giving the VA more details for every listing. So much to think about!
I love listening to all your business wisdom!! Thank you so much for sharing your life & business savvy with all of us I know it's so time consuming to do these video's so thank you tons!! I appreciate all business info I can get... I had one idea if this is of any help to you on the book shelves organizing?? Like for "M" could you do like "M1" "M2" "M3" "M4" etc. as you said it takes you longer on "M" due to 6 shelves for just "M"??? Anyways, not sure if that's even a possibility for you but, just an idea... ♥ Thank you again for all you share with us!!
Thanks so much Jenn, I'm glad you are enjoying the videos! Yes, I could do a more personalised SKU it just means I have to give those details to the VA which can be a little more time consuming. But I think soon I will have to look at another system - maybe I'll even try and colour code the shelves by spine. :)
I don't sell books, but I have a thought for you.... If it were me, I would: 1) Number your shelves. 2) Put a paper 'dot' on each book. 3) Put the shelf number and the number you write on the 'dot' in your listing. That way, as your shelves empty because of sales, you could add inventory to those same shelves as you add more books. Doing things alphabetically or by genre type sounds very difficult and time consuming to maintain and difficult to locate the exact book (especially with multiples of the same book) when sold. Keep it simple..... Best of luck to you!
Great videos, Mel! 👍 Any particular reason you focus on books apposed to CDs/DVDs? Bundles pop up quite a lot at the 50-30c per unit which is similar to your budget.
Love the video Mel! Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling for space when it comes to collecting series etc. Although I'm very tiny in comparison I do enjoy selling books. I have a quick question - what have you used to wrap the books together? Looks a bit like glad wrap.
So true! They take so much space. Yes, it's exactly like a little glad wrap that I buy from my hardware shop called Bunnings. It's called mini shrink wrap. I show it in this video here: th-cam.com/video/tMiuK7oFCug/w-d-xo.html
Books started consuming me and I spend a lot of time working on the TH-cam channel so needed to streamline so I wasn't always so scatterbrained. Having one niche to do helps me to stay focused and work more productively with my time. :) Clothes are still great sellers but now I'm working in the storage units it's hard for me to photograph there which means I have to have photography stations at home and the shed and it puts me out of a state of flow. Hope that all makes sense. Still heaps of money in clothes!!
I sell costume jewellery in uk (wendys-products) on Ebay I think I went through the same problem as your business grow I'm still in my home not gone to storage yet as jewellery is smaller and I'm at 7000 items as I'm a seller on low cost items so I'm churning it over quite fast my inventory is very hard to organise I use lots of plastic boxes and separate the colours or types but now I have still over a hundred items to search through to find it in that box and some times searching is my hardest part it can be done either in minute or an hour as systems not perfect need a better way as well lol
Your doing great there what you've done so. It can be difficult to envisage what systems to lay down at the beginning without making major changes along the way, and effectively managing inventory gets harder as the business grows. With the 6 shelves of M scenario, could you possibly secondary sort that area alphabetically to make it a bit more efficient when picking orders?
I never expected to grow to this many books and looking at my deathpile I can now see the vision of how big it may get lol So it's a constant work in progress about thinking about the best way to do things as smooth running systems are very important to me. Thanks Ian for watching!
I LOVE your channel and think it is so inspiring. Would it be feasible to "sub letter" the shelves then it requires no thought as to number but flows with your existing alphabet system? Ex. Ma-Md, Me-Mi, Mj-Mm, Mn-Mq, Mr-Mu, Mv-Mz That's just how my brain works. I am sure you will find a great way to fine tune your system. Happy selling!
Yes, I might need to look at that. It's just another step I would need to give to the VA though which is what has been holding me back on that type of system.
Mel, how do you use the other shipping options through eBay or my business post. I am trying to use the envelope styles etc but the options are not on either when I go to print labels. I would really appreciate your help with this.
Great video Mel, so informative as usual. I love that you keep it real (as do most Aussie resellers - yay). Could you number the selves as well? e.g. shelves M1, M2, M3 etc. or is that too simple? I'm new at this, so I don't feel qualified to make suggestions, but that's what I would do. Take care :)
Thanks Lynette! I'm trying to show the reality of it and how hard it can also be :) Yes, I could SKU number then but then I have to give the VA those SKU numbers which is another step involved so I have been avoiding that but as I grow I'm not sure what the best option is
Great video Mel. I have approx 2500 books and just like you I have some shelves of just gardening, cooking and religious. I mostly use bookshelves and stand the books up just like in a library in alphabetical order (I pay my daughter to do that). As it grows it means I have to shuffle books around so I am looking for a better way to shelve books too. I have seen youtube videos where those that do merchant fullfill on Amazon seem to file them by a number (SKU) that must be generated by the system and they stick a print out of that inside the book and have that sticking out on the shelves.
@@backfromburnout just maybe ad another sticky note like you do the price etc and wack it on the book while you photograph as you do now,, and then just leave that sticky sku note on it the book to store. another idea ive seen is people take a photo of a small erasable white board like you with all the details on it, ficition, price, condition and sku. rub out repeat, take photo of board, followed by the 5 or so photos of book, another board photo followed by the books photos. etc. hope that helps anyway , im sure youll figure it out. x
I categorize my books by the subject title also but my problem has been bring the books home and then I put him on the category shelf and then when it comes time to listing I pull the books list them and then what would I put them Back on the same shelf then I don't know what's listed and what's not That's my newest dilema
Could you maybe have books spine facing out as listed and pages facing out as unlisted. So at a glance you know which aren’t listed and when listed turn them spine out so you can see title.
I do. But I also get a lot for free and I won’t say no to free stock or books that I can buy very cheap. I’m working to list 500-700 a week so do need a steady supply and hauls don’t always come regularly so I need to take advantage of them when I can get them.
I had always sold books with my clothes and I had about 500 books but then I started to get some hauls and when covid hit the books sold fast so I just kept getting more to keep up with the times. And next minute I was consumed in books and had to move the store to 100% book selling
I don't understand why you'd pile them up like that instead of putting them on the shelves spine-forward like they do in the bookstores/libraries. IMHO you're waisting a lot of room that way. You could buy more of the same shelves and just add in more rows on your current shelves and make if much easier. Also, what do you do if you've got multiples of a book?
I am moving away from clothing because the books are at such a level I'm struggling to keep up with the levels and also TH-cam is very time consuming. I will reconsider clothing once Poshmark hits Australia and has been tested a few months here. :)
Nooooooo - why did you stop using sku's. We didn't have time for sku's so we just put the warehousing code at the end of our listing title. We can find 50 books in 10 minutes using the alpha numeric code on the end of our listing title just viewing the ready to post ebay app category. I used to arrange like you are - never again. We do cardboard boxes with the alpha numeric codes on them. There's a quilting book in box A1, one in A2 etc... Not all in the same box - that would take too long to find. We have DVDs, shoes, clothes, cds, books anything and everything in a box but never the same type of book, author or artist - that leads to mistakes and we're only human
Arghhhh, I know David. This is working for now and I'm quite quick to pick orders but I'm not sure how this will go as I grow. Because I have the VA listing for me it would be another thing to have to give her the SKU in advance.
@@backfromburnout give them just a number .. you know 599 goes after 600 when that book sells you can reallocate that number (you will have a gap to fill in any case once you removed that book) or continue from last number
Watch how I became a eBay book seller and my journey to managing thousands of books on eBay:
th-cam.com/video/UfVcsnYBQCk/w-d-xo.html
Just wondering though how u manage to photograph thousands of books for your listings? As someone who is a boutique sole trader, I just don't have the time to list hundreds per day since it would realistically take me two or three hours just to complete FIVE listings - and that's once I have prepared the material as my lots involve alot of montage-like arrangements since they are not books as such. So one picture montage would take a long time to arrange since my store sells a different line of product and one that is more of an art in some ways than simply selling books. But even with the kinds of items I sell, I notice there are people who can simply list hundreds of listings so it seems in such a short time, that it almost seems impossible, unless they have other ppl helping them of course. I enjoyed watching your video btw. All the best! 👍
Years ago when i hit around 5k in books i ran into big organization issues. I was spending way too much time trying to organize and find them when they sold. I then switched to a simple number system. No letters. No alphabetical. Just shelf 1, 2, 3. Etc. This way in the future no matter if u move to a bigger warehouse or whatever the case might be the number system will fit anywhere. We have numbered totes, numbered shelves, so simple. This has worked very well for us for 20 years. Also anyone can pull orders. So new employees can be trained to pull orders within a few minutes
Thanks so much for your feedback, high levels of books really does take a huge amount of time and organising and I think people underestimate that side of it. Because I use a VA to help me list it's been faster to not have to worry about giving her SKU numbers but as some of the shelves grow I can see it becoming more of an issue as my book numbers grow. I really appreciate your feedback and tips.
I would recommend standing the books up like on a normal bookcase as much as possible. A few reasons, in my experience:
• Easier to pick orders; just grab one book without having to touch the others. Moving stacks each time increases chance of wear and damage. Some books take a long, long time to sell and you want them to remain as described.
• Stacks can sometimes be put left in the wrong place when busy, causing problems down the line.
• Overhanging paperbacks can develop bends. Slim large-format paperbacks (like picture books) get spine-roll. The bottom book's back cover gets scratched up (to prevent this, put a scrap of cardboard underneath). Any little bits of grit between books cause ugly indentations or scratches.
• Less damage from stacks getting knocked over.
• Easier to sort and add new inventory. I use Ikea Kallax bookcases which are deep enough to have a row of books standing at the back with a stack of newly-added inventory in front. Gaps from sold items are instantly filled from the stack with the new book going in exactly the right place. A neat stack would be ordered from big on the bottom to small on the top or all the same size together. This means that neatness is always fighting against your ordering system. Standing books can be perfectly neat and in the perfect order at the same time.
Great ideas Johnny, I'm soaking in everybody's suggestions! Thank you
I agree numbers are infinite, would just use numbers not letters
I really appreciate your content Mel. It’s so direct and honest and no B.S and that’s rare on TH-cam these days. Good luck with the business :) I’m about to start up my own!
Thanks so much, I really appreciate that. And good luck to you and your new business endeavours!
@@backfromburnout Thanks Mel. Given the low overhead, I’m already in slight profit which is nice. The only way from here is up :)
I have about 3000 books at the moment after I bought the contents of a second hand book store (started with about 10K books!!). I use 50ltr tubs just marked from 1 - 60. There is no sorting beyond that. A book gets listed goes where there is space. In 8 years of selling books, have I have never lost 1!! It's a simple system without having to worry about alphabetical order etc. Depending on the size & thickness of the books will depend on how may you can fit in.
Are they heavy Rob with all the tubs stacked on top of each other?
@@backfromburnout i have 50 tubs in my shed that are stacked 3 high. The other 20 are in my ebay storage room in shelves which are a lot easier to handle. Some of the tubs are heavy, some not so bad!!
Hi! Have you ever wondered how libraries organize books? They probably have a very well-established system for placing and storing books.
Hey there . I too have a large inventory of listed books. I finally came up with .... for me.... the simplest way to store listed books by SKU. I just started at number 101 and moved up from there. I’m at 6000 ish now. As I sell down my inventory once a month or so start at the lowest Sku shelf and consolidate to take up the space for sold items and re label each shelf from lowest to highest Sku on each. I hope that made sense . To me it’s easier than searching the letter “m”shelf for an author. My time pulling sold books has dropped immensely.
John this is awesome. Thank you for replying. Can I ask did you go back and inventory all the old stock listed from scratch or did you start from the new stock you listed?
How do you SKU them also. With a sticker on the spine or a piece of paper sticking out of them? Do you stand your books up lay them flat. I’d love if you could send me a photo either on Instagram or via email
backfromburnoutmel@gmail.com
Maybe with repeat letters like M add a number M1, M2, M3 and so on. Another great video.
Thanks for sharing these vids Mel. To see your hard work and dedication pay off is great to see. Considering you have to look after a family as well as streamline and grow your biz is inspirational. You deserve all the respect and success in the world!
What a lovely comment! Thank you so much for your support and kind words, I really appreciate it.
Not sure if someone's already suggested this. You could loosely alphabetize your m row. Put ma on 1st part of shelf then end with mz on 6th shelf. Even if it weren't exactly alphabetized you'd still narrow down shelves you had to dig through. Love your videos thanks.
That's a great idea! Thank you for watching. I am trialing a new inventory system at the moment and it's going well so far!
Media items like books and DVD's are difficult to store. A few years ago I switched over to closed steel shelving system with thinner shelves and more rows (8-9 shelves per unit) because it makes the product easier to find. Thinner shelves and more rows may be a solution for you. The boltless shelves are difficult because there's no back or sides so you can't maximize the space per shelf. It was expensive to switch over to closed shelving (like in a library) but you can store much more product in the same space. Hope that helps and great video by the way. I really enjoy seeing how others run their business and the challenges we all face as entrepreneurs.
Thanks so much, thats a great tip! I will look for those shelves here and see if we have similar! Thank you for watching!
its like my shed but with toys love it great vid
Ha ha! You have lot's of stock also then Scott! It's crazy somedays!
List books in batches and add that to sku batch25 say. Put the batch together on any shelf you like but mark on spreadsheet where batch 25 is. We find a book in minutes out of 4000 and it's flexible as you can put the batch on any shelf and move it if you need to as long as you update the spreadsheet. It's really simple. We made a spreadsheet that has a map of the shelves on it. You can type in the batch your looking for and it highlights the shelf on the map.
Great idea Brian. Thanks for sharing
Mel, have you considered adding locked wheels to the bottom of the racks? That way if you needed to move shelves around you wouldn't have to remove all the books, just unlock and roll.
I have mentioned this to Aaron - so far no luck having him do that task ha ha
I love your volume! So inspiring
I'm so glad! Thank you so much for watching
I commented on one of your posts the other day on Instagram. We have roughly 11k books listed at the moment on tons of websites, we use Neatoscan to list on multi platforms. Me personally I wouldn’t recommend the alphabetical system, I’ve been there and don’t that and I had to restart from the beginning. Books get lost and books get put in the wrong spots. If it were me, for now try a numbering system like a little slip of paper in each book and put them on their spines. Just my two cents! Love the vids
Thanks so much. I guess this has been working for me as the VA does all my listings and I don’t have to worry about giving her SKUs. I just photograph and pop them all onto the shelves with the author surname. But I can see as I grow further it might not keep working this way. Thanks so much for your tips and the idea. I certainly have a lot of things to think about
I’m unsure neatoscan is available in Australia .. does it save all your listings and photos also ?
A compactus would work well in your situation. It would save a lot of space if you could get your hands on one :)
Yes I was almost able to get one of those not long ago but the deal fell through.
Thank you for sharing. Inspirational!!! Hope to one day have this much book inventory.
You are so welcome! It's a hard slog but I enjoy it :)
intimidating to look at, I respect your hustle!
I appreciate that! Thank you for watching, I do work pretty hard and hustle :)
Goodness Mel, you sure have a TON of books!! 😂. But glad to see the video. I have landed on so many books myself, and in my 2 bedroom home 🏠 I am packed FULL with stuff from family and my quilting/sewing room. I have as of right now these books out on my carport that will be put into the garage just so I can move a bit on my carport. Ugh 😩 what a mess.
I am sure you though of it but you could do number the shelves like M1, M2.
Yes, it's just easier at the moment as I then don't have to give my VA and SKU details. Once I move to SKU numbers it's another step giving the VA more details for every listing. So much to think about!
I love listening to all your business wisdom!! Thank you so much for sharing your life & business savvy with all of us I know it's so time consuming to do these video's so thank you tons!! I appreciate all business info I can get... I had one idea if this is of any help to you on the book shelves organizing?? Like for "M" could you do like "M1" "M2" "M3" "M4" etc. as you said it takes you longer on "M" due to 6 shelves for just "M"??? Anyways, not sure if that's even a possibility for you but, just an idea... ♥ Thank you again for all you share with us!!
Thanks so much Jenn, I'm glad you are enjoying the videos! Yes, I could do a more personalised SKU it just means I have to give those details to the VA which can be a little more time consuming. But I think soon I will have to look at another system - maybe I'll even try and colour code the shelves by spine. :)
I don't sell books, but I have a thought for you.... If it were me, I would: 1) Number your shelves. 2) Put a paper 'dot' on each book. 3) Put the shelf number and the number you write on the 'dot' in your listing. That way, as your shelves empty because of sales, you could add inventory to those same shelves as you add more books. Doing things alphabetically or by genre type sounds very difficult and time consuming to maintain and difficult to locate the exact book (especially with multiples of the same book) when sold. Keep it simple..... Best of luck to you!
Oh the SKU is so tricky for me - I'm dreading having to change it
Great videos, Mel! 👍 Any particular reason you focus on books apposed to CDs/DVDs? Bundles pop up quite a lot at the 50-30c per unit which is similar to your budget.
Books just kind of happened but I would certainly consider all types of media in the future as another option.
Do you have the link to where you got your shelves? They are really nice.
Bunnings
Finally another Aussie... what software system do you use to upload your books to?
Hello and welcome fellow Aussie!! I don't use a spreadsheet I just use the eBay listings to search things via SKU or titles etc
Excellent, I found that fascinating.... so good to get an insight into how you operate :)
Glad to hear Nic, I appreciate you watching! Thank you :)
I don't like selling clothes either! Books is where it is at ;P. Great video! Keep up the good work!
Thank you! 😄I appreciate you taking the time to watch!
Love the video Mel! Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling for space when it comes to collecting series etc. Although I'm very tiny in comparison I do enjoy selling books. I have a quick question - what have you used to wrap the books together? Looks a bit like glad wrap.
So true! They take so much space. Yes, it's exactly like a little glad wrap that I buy from my hardware shop called Bunnings. It's called mini shrink wrap. I show it in this video here: th-cam.com/video/tMiuK7oFCug/w-d-xo.html
Why are you no longer selling clothes? Are books more profitable?
Books started consuming me and I spend a lot of time working on the TH-cam channel so needed to streamline so I wasn't always so scatterbrained. Having one niche to do helps me to stay focused and work more productively with my time. :) Clothes are still great sellers but now I'm working in the storage units it's hard for me to photograph there which means I have to have photography stations at home and the shed and it puts me out of a state of flow. Hope that all makes sense. Still heaps of money in clothes!!
I bet organizing them has been tough. I love the thumbnail!
Thanks Craig, it was a big job and I will dread having to move them again one day LOL
Thanks for watching!
I sell costume jewellery in uk (wendys-products) on Ebay I think I went through the same problem as your business grow I'm still in my home not gone to storage yet as jewellery is smaller and I'm at 7000 items as I'm a seller on low cost items so I'm churning it over quite fast my inventory is very hard to organise I use lots of plastic boxes and separate the colours or types but now I have still over a hundred items to search through to find it in that box and some times searching is my hardest part it can be done either in minute or an hour as systems not perfect need a better way as well lol
Nice work Mel. 🎇✨🎆
Thank you Jeff 😁
Your doing great there what you've done so. It can be difficult to envisage what systems to lay down at the beginning without making major changes along the way, and effectively managing inventory gets harder as the business grows. With the 6 shelves of M scenario, could you possibly secondary sort that area alphabetically to make it a bit more efficient when picking orders?
I never expected to grow to this many books and looking at my deathpile I can now see the vision of how big it may get lol So it's a constant work in progress about thinking about the best way to do things as smooth running systems are very important to me. Thanks Ian for watching!
Could you do it like a library? So the books are stacked in their shelves by alphabetical order
Yes, they are stacked in alphabetical order now by the author surname.
I LOVE your channel and think it is so inspiring. Would it be feasible to "sub letter" the shelves then it requires no thought as to number but flows with your existing alphabet system?
Ex. Ma-Md, Me-Mi, Mj-Mm, Mn-Mq, Mr-Mu, Mv-Mz
That's just how my brain works. I am sure you will find a great way to fine tune your system. Happy selling!
Yes, I might need to look at that. It's just another step I would need to give to the VA though which is what has been holding me back on that type of system.
Mel, how do you use the other shipping options through eBay or my business post. I am trying to use the envelope styles etc but the options are not on either when I go to print labels. I would really appreciate your help with this.
They are classed as small parcels. Anything over 2cm thick and 500gr can not be sent as an envelope.
th-cam.com/video/9DeUk9GkPh0/w-d-xo.html
Great video Mel, so informative as usual. I love that you keep it real (as do most Aussie resellers - yay). Could you number the selves as well? e.g. shelves M1, M2, M3 etc. or is that too simple? I'm new at this, so I don't feel qualified to make suggestions, but that's what I would do. Take care :)
Thanks Lynette! I'm trying to show the reality of it and how hard it can also be :) Yes, I could SKU number then but then I have to give the VA those SKU numbers which is another step involved so I have been avoiding that but as I grow I'm not sure what the best option is
Great video Mel. I have approx 2500 books and just like you I have some shelves of just gardening, cooking and religious. I mostly use bookshelves and stand the books up just like in a library in alphabetical order (I pay my daughter to do that). As it grows it means I have to shuffle books around so I am looking for a better way to shelve books too. I have seen youtube videos where those that do merchant fullfill on Amazon seem to file them by a number (SKU) that must be generated by the system and they stick a print out of that inside the book and have that sticking out on the shelves.
Yes, I just need to work out how to do a SKU with the VA if I go down the SKU path. It's so hard
@@backfromburnout i guess you can just add the sku after the listing is done when you put the books away.
@@backfromburnout just maybe ad another sticky note like you do the price etc and wack it on the book while you photograph as you do now,, and then just leave that sticky sku note on it the book to store. another idea ive seen is people take a photo of a small erasable white board like you with all the details on it, ficition, price, condition and sku. rub out repeat, take photo of board, followed by the 5 or so photos of book, another board photo followed by the books photos. etc. hope that helps anyway , im sure youll figure it out. x
good video, i liked and subscribed!
Thank you so much
I categorize my books by the subject title also but my problem has been bring the books home and then I put him on the category shelf and then when it comes time to listing I pull the books list them and then what would I put them Back on the same shelf then I don't know what's listed and what's not That's my newest dilema
Ooooh thats hard! It's really hard to know the best system to do but the more I grow I wonder how long this system will last for me.
Could you maybe have books spine facing out as listed and pages facing out as unlisted. So at a glance you know which aren’t listed and when listed turn them spine out so you can see title.
I would stop buying for books for awhile, you have plenty.
I do. But I also get a lot for free and I won’t say no to free stock or books that I can buy very cheap. I’m working to list 500-700 a week so do need a steady supply and hauls don’t always come regularly so I need to take advantage of them when I can get them.
Is it worth doing amazon FBA so the storage and shipping can be handled by amazon?
In Australia we are not allowed to sell second hand books on Amazon so we really only have eBay as our platform to sell on.
What got you into selling books? Is there a net profit you won't go below on books?
I had always sold books with my clothes and I had about 500 books but then I started to get some hauls and when covid hit the books sold fast so I just kept getting more to keep up with the times. And next minute I was consumed in books and had to move the store to 100% book selling
@@backfromburnout Okay thank you
That looks great. Do you ever put books back on the wrong shelf by mistake ?
I’m pretty careful and never put books away while tired lol I sometimes mix up when the author has a double surname!
I don't understand why you'd pile them up like that instead of putting them on the shelves spine-forward like they do in the bookstores/libraries. IMHO you're waisting a lot of room that way. You could buy more of the same shelves and just add in more rows on your current shelves and make if much easier.
Also, what do you do if you've got multiples of a book?
It’s definitely something I’m looking at changing and trying to work out the best way to do it.
Mel
Hi !!! So you don't sell clothing at all anymore?? Books are great sellers !! 😁😁😁💯🦋
I am moving away from clothing because the books are at such a level I'm struggling to keep up with the levels and also TH-cam is very time consuming. I will reconsider clothing once Poshmark hits Australia and has been tested a few months here. :)
@@backfromburnout Your doing great Mel 💯
Nooooooo - why did you stop using sku's. We didn't have time for sku's so we just put the warehousing code at the end of our listing title. We can find 50 books in 10 minutes using the alpha numeric code on the end of our listing title just viewing the ready to post ebay app category.
I used to arrange like you are - never again. We do cardboard boxes with the alpha numeric codes on them. There's a quilting book in box A1, one in A2 etc... Not all in the same box - that would take too long to find. We have DVDs, shoes, clothes, cds, books anything and everything in a box but never the same type of book, author or artist - that leads to mistakes and we're only human
Arghhhh, I know David. This is working for now and I'm quite quick to pick orders but I'm not sure how this will go as I grow. Because I have the VA listing for me it would be another thing to have to give her the SKU in advance.
@@backfromburnout give them just a number .. you know 599 goes after 600 when that book sells you can reallocate that number (you will have a gap to fill in any case once you removed that book) or continue from last number
great 😀😀
Thank you