In a perfect world, you source a used book for, say £2, with a view of selling it for a lot higher, say £20. You then list it on Amazon, future sellers match your list price and everyone waits for their turn to get a sale.

Unfortunately, this rarely happens in the world of bookselling and reselling in general. The used books market is dynamic. Prices change over time. A lot.

When you first list a book on Amazon at its market price, it’s unlikely to hold that value in the future. It could either go up or down. In that sense, selling books on Amazon is like trading stocks on the stock market.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that you need to keep tabs on your inventory and keep repricing them until they sell.

In this post, I’m going to discuss how you can start repricing your existing offers and ultimately increase sales.

But first, let’s look at why prices change in the first place.

Why prices change

The price of a book changes over time because of supply and demand.

If the sales rate of a book is higher than the number of offers, its price moves up. Conversely, if there are more offers on a listing than the market demands, its price falls.

Let’s say you’ve found a profitable book to resell, for example. It has been selling well in the past and there are only a few sellers on the listing. If the number of sellers offering the book stays low in the future, the book’s market price is likely to hold — or even increase.

If, however, more sellers enter the market, the book’s price is likely to decrease, as sellers would scramble for the next sale. A perfect example of supply exceeding demand is mass-produced fiction paperbacks.

My point is that market prices of books change over time based on supply and demand. Which means that you need to be repricing often to maintain sales.

This brings us to the ways you can reprice.

The different repricing methods

Now that you know prices change over time on Amazon, you know that your inventory requires some level of maintenance.

But how you should be reviewing and making your existing offers competitive regularly?

This is a controversial subject.

The bookselling community can be divided into two schools of thought. Some prefer to adjust prices manually while others preach automatic repricing through a repricing software.

Which one do you choose?

Well, it depends.

Let’s look at the two repricing methods in more detail so that you can make a more informed decision.

Manual repricing

As the name suggests, manual repricing involves reviewing each of your offers individually and repricing them accordingly.

You can view your existing offers by going to ‘Inventory’ and then selecting ‘Manage Inventory’ from the drop-down menu.

Then it’s simply a matter of combing through your offers and making sure each one is competitively priced.

Let’s look at what the bookselling community like and don’t like about manual repricing.

Advantages of manual repricing

• It’s free. Manual repricing is free, making it ideal for those with a small inventory level and people completely new to bookselling.
• Access to live data. What people love the most about manual repricing is that you always get accurate data to base your decision on. So you’re unlikely to reprice your books accurately.
• It’s a great teacher. Manual repricing is a great way to learn the dynamics of the used books market, and supply and demand in general.
• Human intuition. Yes, a repricing software has many advantages but is dependent on you, on what you tell it to do. By repricing manually first, you can better set repricing rules when you start repricing automatically.

What people don’t like about manual repricing

• Inefficient. If your inventory size is large, I would say in the thousands, manual repricing will prove time-consuming.
• Energy draining. Depending on your inventory size and how often you reprice, manual repricing is energy draining. It takes a lot of your energy that you could you spend elsewhere.
• Expensive. How much is your time worth? It’s a question that you should ask yourself often. I used to spend about two hours a day repricing, but then I realised I could spend that time on higher level tasks.

This leads us to the second repricing method: automatic repricing.

Automatic repricing

Automatic repricing involves using a repricing software to help you increase the proportion of Buy Boxes you win. And ultimately increase sales. It was a great invention because it manages your inventory’s prices according to the rules you set and apply.

You can use a repricing software to compete with your competitors based on a range of factors including their fulfillment method, feedback rating, item condition, seller experience and much more.

The majority of experienced FBA booksellers use a repricing software to control the prices of their goods, so you’re missing out if you’re not. They list books for an arbitrary price, say £300 for example, and apply a repricing rule once they arrive at Amazon.

Let’s see what people like and dislike about automatic repricing.

What people like about automatic repricing

• Efficient. Some people love adjusting prices manually, but experienced booksellers that use a repricing software do not. They love how much time a repricing software saves them.
• Inexpensive. A repricing costs about £50 per month, which peanuts compared to amount one could make. Not to mention the amount of time one could save you repricing manually.
• Higher sales. You should see an increase in sales. Why? Because your prices will be competitive most of the time. Trust me, customers can smell a fair price miles away.
• Repricing products price up, too. The common belief in the bookselling community is that repricing software only reprices down. But this isn’t the case, they also reprice up too.

Disadvantages of repricing software

• High learning curve. Getting your repricing strategy right and then automating it is hard. It will take time and patience, but it’s worth it.
• Repricing software mistakes. Yes, it’s risky leaving the repricing of your inventory to a software. But what’s worth having that does not involve risk? The top repricing products have been around for a long time and they have been fully tested.

Manual Vs automatic repricing

The repricing method you choose will depend on your situation. Specifically on your inventory count and how much time you have.

If you have a small inventory count or are new to FBA bookselling, I would highly recommend repricing manually. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s free and you will learn a lot.

I personally repriced our stock for more than a year. Way more than I would recommend anyone now. I would spend hours scrolling through our inventory and review each offer individually.

Automatic repricing is more efficient and can free a lot of time. I knew that. And I knew I could use that time to focus on other projects like private labeling and blogging, for example.

But I found it difficult to make the switch. Mainly because I just didn’t want to let go of control. I suppose I was afraid of letting a software dictate the prices of books that we worked hard to source.

I continued to reprice manually because I had limited capital but more time. If, however, money is not a constraint for you, consider using a repricing software. It will save you a lot of time and you will learn an important aspect of selling on Amazon early: automatic repricing.

Why I decided to use a repricing software

There is nothing wrong with manually repricing. But for me, it became a chore once we hit 1,000 books in inventory. I persisted though and continued adjusting prices manually because I thought we were saving money.

But that wasn’t the case. It was actually losing us money. I used to spend a good three to fours a day repricing — time that I could have been spending on higher ROI (Return On Investment) activities.

Once we hit about 7,000 in stock level, however, it was then that I got sick of manual repricing. And it was then that I decided to consider using a repricing software.

Conclusion

Repricing inventory is an important aspect of selling on Amazon. And it’s something that you need to grasp sooner rather than later.

I would only recommend using a repricing software if you have a large inventory or you are short on time. Or if you’re an experienced Amazon seller.

If you’re a complete novice to bookselling, however, you don’t need a repricing software until you have a decent number of books inventory, say about 500 books. In fact, I would recommend manual repricing until you get sick of it.

I personally didn’t even consider a using a repricing software until I had about several thousand books in inventory. In hindsight, I should have got a repricing software a lot earlier.