How Does an Online Bookstore Work?
Online Bookstores
An online bookstore may sell new books, used books or both. Some businesses that sell books online do business only online. Other businesses have a traditional brick and mortar store as well. Selling books online expands sales opportunities, because the customer base is worldwide instead of local like in the case of traditional brick and mortar bookstores.
Selling Books
Online book stores sell books on their website, community bookseller websites or both. When an online bookstore sells through their own website, they list the books on the site and keep 100 percent of the profits. When an online bookstore sells on a community bookseller website, they lose part of the profit to that website. The community bookseller website takes a cut of the book sales. The benefit to selling on a community bookseller website is that these sites are popular and they receive high numbers of daily traffic. The high numbers of traffic increase the likelihood that the books will sell. So even though the online bookseller has to give a cut of the profits to the community bookseller website, they may still make more money compared with sales on their own website, which most likely does not receive as much daily traffic. Two common community bookseller websites are Amazon and Biblio. Once a book is purchased, the online bookseller packages and mails the book to the customer.
Accepting Payment
If an online bookstore sells books on their website, they have to set up a payment acceptance method. They can utilize the services of a PayPal account, get a merchant card account or use an online store service to accept payments. If the online bookstore sells on a community bookseller website, payments are accepted through the community bookseller. The community bookseller transfers the money from the sales into the online bookseller's bank account.
Inventory
Successful online bookstores must have a diverse and abundant inventory of books. Online bookstores that have a brick and mortar store sell the inventory that they carry in their store. Online bookstores that sell strictly online get their books from a variety of locations. They may purchase large amounts of overstock books from companies for a cheap price. They also may purchase used books from garage sales and thrift stores. Some online booksellers place advertisements in the newspaper offering to buy people's used books. Online booksellers learn through experience and research which books will sell fast and how much they can get for each book. Some used books that are rare, are first edition prints or are autographed can be worth a lot of money.
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