In this Scanlister review, we take a look at the first and most popular solution for listing used books in bulk on Amazon. We’ll discuss Scanlister’s pricing, features, interface, and go through its pros and cons.
Can you guess how many used books I’ve listed, prepped and shipped off to FBA warehouses?
Yes, 16,897 books in just over 15 months. (Did the title give it away?)
And it’s true, just look at the screenshot from Amazon Seller Central. It shows the number of books I’ve listed on Amazon. Which is the sum of the number of books I’ve sold and the number still available for sale.
But what’s crazy is that listing used books is notoriously difficult because booksellers rarely get hold of multiple copies of the same book. Instead, we get a copy of every title under the sun that is profitable.
You’re wondering how I did it, right?
It all starts with conditioning books. Most booksellers condition their books in-line with Amazon’s book condition guideline into the following categories: Like new, very good, good, or acceptable.
You open your phone’s camera with the Seller app, align and focus it until it finally scans the ISBN barcode of the book you want to list. And that’s just the start. You then set the book’s list price, condition, and a condition note — and finally list it.
Phew.
Imagine going through the process I just described over and over again, tens of times.
But does this process sound familiar?
Yes, of course, it does because it’s how everyone learned to list on Amazon.
Listing this way through the Seller app is great for people new to FBA bookselling because it works well when listing a small number of books, or multiple copies of the same book.
But as you get experienced and source more and more books you will find this process time-consuming and frustrating. You will find that you spend more time listing than finding inventory to resell, the most important part of any business.
So, what does this mean?
Well, it means that you will need to pivot and become more efficient.
Thankfully, though, there are many listing products out there that can help you list hundreds of books quickly, saving you valuable time that can spend on sourcing inventory and increasing revenue.
When it was time for me to invest in a listing software, I decided to go with ScanLister, which has helped me list 16,897 books on Amazon so far.
Scanlister
As I mentioned earlier, listing manually through the Seller app or the Seller Central is slow and time-consuming, so most experienced booksellers use a third-party listing service.
Most booksellers use Scanlister, the ‘well-kept secret’ that everyone knows about, mainly because it was the first book listing software. And ever since its introduction, it has grown into a household name in the FBA bookselling community.
Through Scanlister you can list books on Amazon seamlessly in any of the following Amazon marketplaces: USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Spain.
Once downloaded, Scanlister is easy to install and use.
Pricing
Scanlister’s pricing structure is unlike most subscription-based businesses in that it doesn’t have a multilevel subscription plan. Instead, it simply has two plans on offer: pay monthly buy it outright.
- Subscription. You can use Scanlister for $19 per month. Great option if you are unsure about FBA bookselling.
- A lifetime purchase. A lifetime purchase costs $299, for which you get to keep Scanlister for life. I would recommend this option if you think you’ll be in the FBA bookselling business for the long haul.
But you don’t have to decide now, you can try it for free and continue only if you find it helpful.
I personally chose the pay monthly option (which I now regret). I’ve been using Scanlister for about 18 months now and have paid $342 in total. If I could go back, I would have bought software out-right.
How does Scanlister’s pricing compare to that of its competitors?
Scanlister was made only for listings books, so naturally, it doesn’t have much competition. Thus you would expect it to be expensive, but it isn’t — it’s actually priced in low-end of the book listing solution scale.
Compared to the other few book listing software on the market, Scanlister is the cheapest and is:
- significantly cheaper than Inventory Lab
- cheaper than AccelerList
Pricing is important, but it shouldn’t be the only factor that you base your decision on. The more important thing to consider is what you get and whether it will solve your problem.
That said, let’s look at some Scanlister features.
Key features of Scanlister
Here are Scanlister’s key features that help simplify listings books on Amazon:
- A simple, no-nonsense layout
- Fast bulk listing
- Detailed workflow
- Box content feature
- Multiple licenses — access to five licenses to use on any PC or MAC
- Access to an active Facebook group
- To cancel whenever you want
- Option to purchase it for a lifetime
It’s also worth saying that ScanLister was created by Nathon Holmquist, an Amazon FBA bookseller himself. So I suppose you can say that it was designed for us, by us.
Software layout
Compared to its competitors, Scanlister’s layout is simpler, less cluttered and easier to navigate. This distraction-free aspect allows you to focus on one task: listing, and listing alone.
Here’s a video showing the layout of Scanlister.
Bulk listing
The bulk listing mode in Scanlister makes speed listing straightforward — you can list hundreds of books in just a few hours in this mode.
How?
You set some presets in Scanlister, presort your books into groups according to their conditions, and then list them in groups. In this mode, you set an arbitrary list price, let’s £100 for example, for every book and re-price them later when they arrive at Amazon.
You can enable bulk listing mode by selecting ‘Bulk Listing’ from the ‘Listing Method’ drop-down menu.
Then you set listing presets — SKU Prefix, Default Price, Condition etc — and start listing like a pro.
Listing presets
Setting listing presets in Scanlister is straightforward.
Here are some of the key listing presets you can change:
- Default price
- Quantity
- Condition
- SKU prefix
You can even set a default minimum and maximum price.
Condition Note is the only listing preset that requires some work. I would recommend familiarising yourself with Amazon’s condition guidelines and creating your own condition note for each condition category. You can do this by clicking ‘Manage Conditions.’
Start listing like a pro
You can start listing like a pro once you set the listing presets and you’ve sorted your books into groups. It’s a lot easier to list books in groups that have similar listing presets, like same Condition Note, than if they don’t.
Detailed listing workflow
A nice, and relatively new, feature of Scanlister is its detailed listing workflow.
This mode is suitable if you have books that vary substantially in value and condition. Therefore these books require individual attention. And this mode allows you to control presets such as Price, Condition and Condition Note.
If you’re just starting out in FBA bookselling, you might find the mode helpful, especially because you can price and list at the same time. This is a big time-saver and a great a way to keep cost low — you won’t need a pricing software.
Here’s a book that I listed in the detailed workflow mode. Once I scanned the book I got access to all the offers on Amazon — which is why I could price it accurately.
Once I set a list price, I hit ‘Grade’ to grade the book.
The detailed listing workflow is great because you have control of price and condition note.
Scanlister support
One of Scanlister’s stand-out feature is its library of video guides, to which they are continually adding. The videos are detailed, beginner friendly, and curated by Nathan Holmquist, the co-founder of Scanlister.
So you’re unlikely to get stuck, but if you do, you can always email Scanlister about your problem. And the thing that I love about Scanlister’s email support is that Nathan responds to all queries himself. You will be in safe hands if you ever need help.
The only downside of Scanlister’s support is that it doesn’t offer phone nor support. To compensate for this, however, Scanlister has a buzzing Facebook group that boasts over 1,000 members.
Box content feature
Another important feature of Scanlister is that you can add box content information to your shipments.
If you’re based in the USA, you know that Scanlister’s box content feature is invaluable because you have to provide box content information.
As of October 2018, Amazon will also require us UK sellers to provide the contents of all the shipments we send to Amazon warehouses for fulfillment.
Adding box content information to your shipment using Scanlister is pretty straightforward.
Multiple licenses
Unlike its competitors, Scanlister gives you five licenses.
If you’re a one-man/woman bookseller, you probably won’t ever need to the extra licenses. But if you plan on becoming a mega bookseller, you will need as many licenses as you can get. Multiple licenses will become essential.
As a small-time bookseller, I don’t and won’t ever need to more than one license but you might. They are there if you ever need them.
Pros
There many reasons for why you should be using ScanLister as a bookseller:
It’s easy to use
You can list more than 100 books on Amazon per hour
Easy to print labels
It has a vibrant and helpful community
You can cancel at anytime
Cons
I honestly can’t think of many cons. It’s the perfect tool for listing books on Amazon. It does exactly what it says on the tin: list hundreds of books fast on Amazon with a click of a button.
If you disagree and know of some disadvantages, please write about them in the comments.
Conclusion
Overall I would rate Scanlister 5 out of 5 and would say that it’s an essential tool for any serious bookseller.
I would highly recommend Scanlister to anyone serious about FBA bookselling because it’s easy to use and has an excellent support. This is particularly important if you are a new bookseller without much experience.
Additionally, it’s affordable. At $19 per month, it costs only a fraction of what would make with the time it will save you. It has definitely saved us a lot of time — in fact, we use it daily to grow and maintain our Amazon FBA bookselling hustle.
All in all, I believe Scanlister to be an invaluable tool and one that’s definitely worth the investment.
I rate ScanLister highly and would recommend it to anyone serious about FBA Bookselling. It’s an excellent tool and definitely worth the investment. It will allow you to list books a lot faster and, as a result, will give you more time to source books.
Free trial of Scanlister
If you are not convinced, why not try ScanLister for free for 14 days and only sign up if you find it helpful. If you don’t you can cancel it at any time.