Pondering Prices

I should have been here by now I know, but there’s this pesky thing called work that occasionally needs my undivided attention. So yesterday I hunkered down and began attacking the contents of the office closet. I whine continuously about how few books I have stockpiled when in fact the office closet is stuffed, and the guest room closet pictured above is not exactly empty. There are also books on the shelves in the garage (not too many though) and some in the basement requiring repair. And we won’t even DISCUSS paper. I think what happens is we tire of looking at the books we’ve had kicking around awhile and begin to mentally dismiss them. These days the outcome of such lassitude can go either way – you miss your moment, or they improve with age.

Here’s what I mean. When I came back from the Case Western sale in late May I researched prices on every book I kept to put online and outfitted each one with a slip of paper with their intended prices inside. Now, just six weeks later, I take them out to list only to find that in a few instances they’ve already gone dramatically south. But the opposite also proved true. A few which I priced low have shot skyward and, in at least two instances, artificially so. The fact of the matter is this – booksellers continue to multiply like bunnies, but come at this crazy endeavor with varying degrees of knowledge and appreciation for what they sell. The pulsing desire is to push the product, so it stands to reason that sometimes very good books get the short end of the stick while lesser ones soar like eagles. A perfect example is a gun book I’ve sold several times. When I looked it up in May it was offered as low as $25 even though my records indicate that I sold it three times at $35, the last time being in January. Reluctantly, I marked the slip with $25, but noted that if it had not risen by the time I was ready to list I would either have Eric take it to a show, or I would take it to the mall. Amazingly, this book now lists at $65 to $100!

Cause for rejoicing, yes? Mmmm… not really. Though it’s tempting to jump in at $65 and try to score I will not be doing it. First of all, it’s truly NOT a $65 book, as there have since been several written on this specific model that are much better. To act as though I have the definitive book on the subject when I most definitely do not makes me feel creepy and unprofessional. But for argument’s sake let’s say I set my scruples aside and jump in at a “low” $65. My window of opportunity is probably less than the time it takes to respond to an order. So now there I am in a couple weeks relegated to page two of the listings which is probably where I deserve to be. In the end, I’m pricing it at $35 even though it appears that I am doing the very thing I rail about – lowballing other sellers. But in this instance what appears to be undercutting really isn’t.

Not long ago I read in Americana Exchange about a long-time seller whose listings I run across on ABE continuously. Though he holds an inventory of more than a hundred thousand books he actually went through every last one and repriced them to conform to today’s averages. Earlier this year I attempted to do likewise, in hopes of streamlining my listings. I need to continue this project when time allows, but the difference between what he did and what I want to continue doing is huge. He “caught up” with current prices, which I guess is good, as it will more than likely trigger sales, at least in the short run. But the fact remains that the market is as fickle as a teenage boy. As I write this, at least a portion of his prices have already become obsolete. I can’t recall whether or not he installed that software which lowers prices incrementally, but I suspect he did. If so, then he can still compete. But I would also add that my long-time bookseller friend who is seeking a job did this too, only to find it less than sustainable over the long haul.

As for me, I want to go through the same laborious process, but just as I began it. My goal when I first undertook it, was, and still is, to clean out the “dead wood”. In some instances I WILL lower prices, but in others I will move the books offline and into one of our two physical locations. The remaining books (they’re the ones gasping for breath ) I will donate to the bookstore in town run by Project Learn, a literacy program. It’s interesting to note that my online inventory has dropped to an alarming 5000 items which seems impossible considering that we’ve been in business 14 years. But here’s the thing. When you look at what little I have now and consider that in the span of two years alone I bought the entire contents of a bookstore in Indiana and the two giant Elmer collections, it’s evident that my sell-through rate has been fairly astonishing.

In the end, my feelings about pricing boil down to this. I do not, and never have, considered books to be pork bellies, the market for which zooms all over the board at supersonic speed. My intention is to be fair to my customers, resist temptations to be opportunistic, and sell good books at fair prices. Consider for a moment the amount of money, time and effort is takes to acquire a decent inventory. Books cost more than ever before, as their popularity online has erroneously convinced all venues – library sales, estate sales, private sellers, auction houses etc. – that practically anything between two covers must be worth a fortune. Then there’s the lines at sales which snake through entire buildings, down sidewalks, and wrap around corners, which of course mean that our amount of wait time to get a reasonably early glimspse at the offerings has grown exponentially (three hours is the norm around here). Then after we buy the books we must schlep them, clean them, research them, list them, shelve them, wrap them, pay commissions on them, and ship them,  often for less than actual cost.

How, given all that, can we afford to sell our books at the whims of a capricious market that’s increasingly dominated by people who don’t even read?