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Flipping Books on Amazon

You buy used books for a dollar or two at thrift stores and library sales, scan each one with a phone app to see what it sells for on Amazon, and send the ones that pay to Amazon's warehouses to sell.

One job pays
$15-$24.99
one used book bought, sent to Amazon FBA and sold
Out of that
$1-$2, $2.25-$3.75, $1.80, $3.24-$3.95
the book itself (thrift store / library sale), Amazon referral fee (15% of the sale price), Amazon media closing fee, FBA fulfillment fee
Time on the job
10-15 minutes
Unpaid time
15-30 minutes
Jobs in a week
10-30 books sold
To start
$25 – $115
$25-$115
First money in
2-6 weeks
2-6 weeks

That is 1.8 times the US federal minimum wage, $7 an hour.

What the job actually is

Book flipping is a form of retail arbitrage. A thrift store prices most of its books the same no matter what they're worth, but Amazon prices each title by demand. A scanning app shows you the gap in about a second. You keep the books that clear a profit floor, list them as used, and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) stores, ships and handles customer service for a per-book fee.

How the work goes

  1. 1

    Scan shelves with an app

    At a thrift store or library sale, scan barcodes with ScoutIQ on your phone, or with a Bluetooth scanner paired to it. Each scan shows the book's Amazon price, its sales rank and what you'd net after fees.

  2. 2

    Buy only what clears your trigger

    Set buy rules by sales rank. A fast-selling book (rank under 100,000) needs at least $5 profit. A slower one needs more, because it may sit for months.

  3. 3

    Grade, list and label

    Check the condition honestly, list each book as used in Seller Central, and stick an Amazon barcode label over the ISBN.

  4. 4

    Ship a box to FBA

    Create an inbound shipment, pack the books in a box, print the shipping label and drop it off. Amazon does the storing and shipping from there.

  5. 5

    Get paid and reinvest

    When a book sells, Amazon takes the 15% referral fee, the $1.80 media closing fee and the fulfillment fee, then pays you the rest. Most sellers put it back into the next round of books.

How to get your first paid job

  1. 1

    Open an Amazon seller account on the Individual plan

    There's no monthly fee, just $0.99 per book sold. Move to the $39.99 Professional plan once you're selling more than about 40 books a month.

  2. 2

    Install ScoutIQ and set your buy triggers

    Start the 14-day free trial, then move to the $14/month Live plan. Set the minimum profit by sales rank: $5+ under 100,000, $10+ up to 500,000, $20+ up to 1 million, and skip anything slower.

  3. 3

    Source a first batch of 20-50 books

    Go to Goodwill-type thrift stores on half-price days and to Friends of the Library sales, where books run $0.50-$2. Scan everything and buy only what passes your triggers.

  4. 4

    List, label and send your first FBA box

    Grade each book honestly, list it as used, put Amazon's barcode label over the ISBN, create an inbound shipment in Seller Central and drop the box at the carrier.

  5. 5

    Make your first sales and reinvest

    Correctly priced books typically sell within 1-4 weeks of going live. Put the first payouts back into the next sourcing trip so the inventory grows.

The catch

What it takes is buying discipline: buy only books that the scanner shows netting at least $5 at a sales rank that actually sells (under about 100,000), and ask for more profit the slower a book sells. Fees on a $15 book come to about $7 and leave you $5-$6, so a book that doesn't clear that bar isn't worth buying. Keep costs low: thrift half-price days and library sales at $1 or less a book, ScoutIQ's $14 Live plan rather than the $69 bundle, and the no-monthly-fee Individual plan until you sell 40+ books a month.

What you need to buy

  • Bluetooth barcode scanner

    Pairs with ScoutIQ so you can scan whole shelves fast, at 5-10 books a minute, instead of using the phone camera

    Find one

  • Thermal label printer

    Prints the Amazon barcode labels that go on each book and the shipping labels for FBA boxes

    Find one

  • Shipping scale

    Weighs each FBA box for the inbound shipping label

    Find one

  • Moving/shipping boxes

    Packing books for inbound FBA shipments

    Find one

  • Tape gun and packing tape

    Sealing FBA boxes

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Where to sign up

Before you start

  • A smartphone that can run a scanning app (ScoutIQ or similar)
  • An Amazon seller account (Individual plan to start, Professional once you sell 40+ books a month)
  • Enough working capital for a first batch of 20-50 books at thrift prices
  • A car or some other way to get round thrift stores, library sales and estate sales
  • A table and some shelf space at home to grade, label and box books