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

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