Introduction
Let’s play a little game. A few weeks ago, my video game buddy told me to buy this Zelda book preorder for $47 a piece. That’s usually all the info you get. Now you have to do research and figure out if it’s worth buying or not. The first step is to obviously look for past Zelda hardcover books on Ebay right? So I search for sold listings for “Zelda hardcover” and see this:
Of course I have no idea how much it retailed for so I Google searched for that book and it showed up on Best Buy and it came out recently.
Now those aren’t great margins, but that’s because the book just came out. You’d have to keep the book in mint condition for years before you’ll get a nice ROI. SO WOULD YOU BUY THE BOOK?
What I did
I actually decided to order 10 of them. I was a bit surprised Amazon let me buy that many, but whatever. Then I saw this Slickdeal thread:
After I read those comments, I decided to cancel my order. My buddy asked, “Why cancel it? You can just return later.” I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of a return so was satisfied with cancelling my 10. You know what happens next…
Current Price
Of course now the book is all sold out. Then my buddy sent me this link. I’ll save you the trouble of clicking on it. The book is going for $100+ on Ebay. With my 10 that I had ordered, that’s a cool $500 that I lost out on because I stupidly cancelled.
Lessons Learned
One, don’t listen to cheap people on Slickdeals. Second, when in doubt, buy first, then think about it later. Third, buy future Zelda limited edition books.
I used to resell books, and it is really hard to turn a profit. Ooh maybe I should write a blog post about it. For many reasons, I’d say you were in the right to cancel your order.
This isn’t a normal book. It’s a limited edition fanboy book. I should have kept it and waited to see ebay prices before cancelling or just pay the return fee (like a cheap stock option)
I guess, but prices are already down as low as $88 BIN w/free shipping. The more copies you have, the harder it is to move all of them before prices eventually settle down. Plus, all those listings have free shipping, so by the time you pay eBay fees, PayPal fees, and media mail shipping, you’d have had a hard time clearing $500 even if you sold all 10 for optimal prices on day 1.
Yeah I would have at least tried to sell them during the return window to see what happens.
Wait, how is it $500 profit? You’d have to clear $50 per book. Retail is $80 plus tax. Ebay showing ~$100-$120 sales without factoring shipping and fees. Hmm… Good posts though, gets the brain tinkering.
I had ordered 10
The pre-order price was $47 each. selling at $100+ on all 10 copies would have made good profit.