Advice on selling books/mags from Canada to US? Is it worth it and how do you ship?

[americannostalgia]

This one is for  Canadian ebay book sellers.

Would you offer any guidance or advice on selling regular used books and magazines on ebay.ca to USA?

Specifically: is it worth it?  How do you ship single paperbacks and/or hardbacks  --envelopes?  What about tracking?

Also: any other advice I should know before takign the plunge?  I've been selling model kits, knick knacks, toys in the past. 

Any and all guidance is welcome.

Details: I'm culling a few hundred paperbacks, trades, and some hardbacks from my collection.

Most are in decent condition but are not rare or sought after.  These are mostly fiction. I have romance, westerns, detective, crime, some SF, etc. Plus nonfiction: science textbooks, cliffs style notes (ie coles notes books), history books (canada, usa), cookbooks, some kids books.

As for the magazines they are all scale model hobby mags. They usually sell on ebay anywhere from a few dollars usd to 15-20 depending on the topic/issue etc. Mine are in decent condtion and are around 4-5 usd vale each.  But again Im more concerned about the books as they are bulkier and take up more space and I wont to move them (slowly if need be but to move them)

I see some canadian sellers who ship a single paperback to the US for free shipping. The paperback might be over 2cm thick so they must be shipping as small air packet. I doubt those are insured.  A friend warned me thtat ebay says to never ship without tracking. But we're talking Canada Post here: tracking an envelope (registered mail) even an item under 2 cm is what now 19 dollars or something?  He said that I would be innudated with fake "never recieved" notifications but I don't see any other way that Canadian ebay sellers could make any profit on selling books and magazines.

I dont want to dontate these books as they are in decent condition (all very good or vg+) and I could use the money of course. 

[americannostalgia]

YOU were one of the sellers I was hoping would respond!  I was even considering emailing you to drop by here but I didnt want to disturb you.  I actually use your listings as a leanring tool. I think Ill put up some of the vintage books I just found in my culling pile  and try to sell the rest locally. 

btw that is my demographic!  lol I can atest to the fact this is true because Ive been on the recieving end of this type of scammer esp for games.  But Ive had no problems with model kits (usually older males many married with kids who are serious model kit builders). 

Thank you for your post femmefan1946

[americannostalgia]

thanks yes I was surprised at all the advice and how lively this forum is. I should have started asking questions a long time ago. You guys are great.

"Don't be afraid of lettermail domestically. It's certainly possible you could get scammed occassionally, but the money you'll save and the extra sales you make should blow any losses out of the water. I've had (maybe) one or two scams out of probably 1000 lettermail items in my media store."

This  is great advice. I ll probably do lettermail for  any vintage books domestically. 

[americannostalgia]

Yes I looked into this. I think Ill use your info for anything vintage or sought after . thanks

[americannostalgia]

Thanks to everybody who responded. Im actually going to print this all out and read it over. I think in the end I will sell only vintage books on ebay ship lettermail domestically, small packet internationally with tracking and bulk sell locally everything else that will sell. Anything after that i will donate to libraries, retirement homes etc . 

[flipistics]

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@americannostalgia wrote:

Anything after that i will donate to libraries, retirement homes etc . 

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Some libraries also have bookstores that can be very good for sourcing if you ever wish to.

[darak10]

no problem.  Its the same here - Calgary is now largely unaffordable, 100,000 people coming to town in the last couple years, theres very few affordable options to live.  Up here, theres ON & BC plates everywhere, and a coworker who moved here from Mississauga a couple years ago says he is continually hearing stories of people he knows "back home" who have initiated the process of moving here.  

yes, Ive said it quite a few times, Canadians are getting absolutely killed, the vast majority just cant afford discretionary purchases.  I just took a look at todays and yesterdays sales and 100% of Canadian sales (double digits) were between 8 - 12 dollars.