A business, depending on the size, can be made up of dozens to thousands of different processes and each business runs these processes differently.  An online used book selling business is no different.  Have you counted how many different processes that you’ve grown to just do day in and day out without even thinking?  What do I mean by a process?  A process is a vague term for any task that requires more than one action in  sequential order.  Think about an assembly line in a automobile factory.  An auto manufacturer first needs to find suppliers to build the cars.  Once the suppliers are found, they then need to bring in the raw materials to a factory.  In this factory, they have different stations setup to transform these raw materials into a finished product which would be a beautiful, new car!

What core processes constitute a typical online used book business?

1. Sourcing
2. Inventory Receiving
3. Inventory Management
4. Order Fulfillment
5. Customer Service

Under each of these processes, you’ll have other processes such as what you typically do at a library sale, how you pack books, answer customer questions, etc.  Each of these processes makes up your entire business and it is very important for you to periodically evaluate each process and determine if you’re truly meeting your goals in each area.  It is very important to set a a goal in each area in order for you to evaluate how you’re doing.  If you don’t have a goal, you have nothing to shoot for.  You’ll just continue poking along and continuing your ho-hum, mediocre process and then blame the economy when your sales tank.

There are numerous changes that you can make to your processes to improve efficiency, decrease time and leverage more resources to make each process a success.  From my experience, I will try to list and explain some of these changes to the core processes that I’ve made in my business that may help you in your business as well.

Tips for improving each core process of an online used book business

1. Sourcing: Be Creative – Book sourcing (acquiring inventory) is the most sought after process to improve upon.  This is because everyone knows that if you can’t find inventory to buy to list on Amazon, eBay, Alibris, etc then your business will soon peter out once the premium inventory sells off.  A quick tip I’ve used to improve my sourcing process is:

Creativity is the most important trait to have when trying to improve this process.  Everyone knows to hit up Friends of the Library sales, yard sales, thrift stores like Salvation Army or Goodwill.  Since everyone knows about these places already chances are they’re already going to be picked over by other booksellers unless you’re lucky enough to not have any other seller competition in your area.

To truly succeed in this business, it takes some putting pencil to paper and writing out everywhere you can think of that has lots of books.  Where do books tend to accumulate?  List them out!  I believe one of the best sections in my eBook Used Books: Big Business – The Secrets to Selling Books Online is when I discuss sourcing.  I have a section called finding books for sale and books NOT for sale.  Simply thinking that if a pile of books doesn’t have a For Sale sticker on it does not mean that you can’t buy them.  It just means that you’re going to have to put in a little effort to find out the owner’s price for them.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, Frank Florence has a product called Creative Inventory Sourcing.  It is a booklet that reminds me of Dave Ramsey’s (the personal finance guru) material.  It’s dead simple but if someone doesn’t put it in your face and get you thinking differently, the ideas will never cross your mind.

2. Inventory Receiving: Use speed as a goal – This is the process of bringing in the fruits of your labor from the field and getting them into whatever process you use to list books.  Everyone has limited time and if you’re like me with a full-time job other than bookselling, time is critical.  This process is not glamorous but critical and needs to be as automated as possible to decrease the time you spend listing books.

Do you currently use Amazon’s seller account site to list books one at a time?  Would it make sense to whip up a spreadsheet such as this one I made to upload FBA inventory that you can scan the ISBNs into and have a standard description you can use for all like condition books?  I eventually decided to go to FillZ whenever I was first starting out just to increase my receiving speed alone!

3. Inventory Management: Use locator codes – This process is all about organization.  My last post on getting organized talks all about this.  If you source the book and you sell it, but you can’t find it that’s the same thing as not selling it at all but also with a possible ding on your feedback score.

Locator codes, shelf numbers, or whatever you want to call them are just indicators of where a book was placed.  Each book should have a code assigned to it to tell you where it is in case it ever sells.  If you use shelves and have a lot of different sets of shelves, use a locator code like A001-B001-S001 which means the book is on the first aisle of shelves, the first bay which is just a warehouse term for a set of shelves and then the shelf number itself starting at 1 at the bottom going to 5-6 indicating the top shelf.  Properly organizing your inventory will save you from having to make multiple refunds or from driving yourself crazy trying to find that $100 book you swore you put on the A shelf.

4. Order Fulfillment: Establish a schedule – This, of course, is a also a very important process.  If a customer pays for a book and you don’t give it to them, they may have a problem with that.  The most important yet most non-exciting part of order fulfillment for me was to just set a certain time and interval I was going to fulfill orders.

First, it gets you in the habit and second, customers love a quick, consistent shipment.  I decided to process orders every day M-F at 6PM just because I’m working 8-5 but if you’re a full-time bookseller you should do this as well.  Create a timeframe every day, if possible, to stop listing inventory and process all orders you have that day even if it’s just 1 or 2.

5. Customer Service: Create templates for email replies – I hate customer service.  I’m so limited on time, the last thing I want to do is to answer questions from potential eBay buyers or process refunds but it comes with the territory.  I have email templates for things such as if I have to refund an order, cancel an order or for anyone asking me what my return policy is.  Having a template already typed up where you can do a quick copy and paste that answers the customers’ questions quick and to the point will decrease the time it takes to do customer service and still provide the customer with the answer they are looking for.

If you take the time to define what processes your business consists of and take a step back from the daily grind to work on improving them on a consistent basis I promise your sales will reflect this.