hi, i'm in first year and looking to sell my first term books, and i've heard and seen undercovers at the basement of MUSC but never entered...

i wanna know how it works?
do i just take my books and they're gonna sell it??

please help!
thanks!!

-Maudj

Originally Posted by Maudjee22

hi, i'm in first year and looking to sell my first term books, and i've heard and seen undercovers at the basement of MUSC but never entered...

i wanna know how it works?
do i just take my books and they're gonna sell it??

please help!
thanks!!

-Maudj

You give them the books, you tell them a price you want to sell it for. They put it up on their shelves later on in the day. Some other student might stop by and buy it.

They take like 20% of your selling price as commission for providing you a venue to sell your book/paying the staff wages/rent etc.

I recommend just waiting until next year and selling your books yourself through the macinsiders marketplace. You tend to get a better deal that way.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I recommend just waiting until next year and selling your books yourself through the macinsiders marketplace. You tend to get a better deal that way.

I would slightly disagree. MacInsiders despite its awesomeness is still not a resource used by ALOT of students. I would say there still are 10,000+(Based on the 6000 username registration figures I heard) students who don't come here.
They might visit Undercovers though!

I have had a good run putting my books at undercovers and then advertising it online and telling people to GO to undercovers to get my book. But I probably got lucky because there weren't alot of other books for my category so he/she didn't go and buy someone else's book instead

The main reason anyone would go to Undercovers though is that it makes it easier for you to sell it. No trying to set up meets on campus and other stuff.

okay so i should simply take my books and set any price on them?
and hope that someone will buy it???

And if they never sell? Do they contact you? Or do you have to take a guess and just randomly go in and put it at a lower price?

And does it matter the condition of the book? (ie: massive highlighting)

I have a completely unused Accounting textbook... wouldn't mind getting close to full price for it. XD

Thanks for this thread; extremely useful.

Well they don't contact you. If I recall correctly you can take it out after 2 or 3 months if it doesn't sell, if you take it out before you have to pay some sort of fee. But you can change the prices if possible. Also, they don't discriminate on the condition, the people browsing the books do!

A good advice for your accounting textbook would be to scout the business section of the shop and see if your accounting book is being sold by other people and try and set a similar or lower price in order to be competitive!

@Huzaifa We're currently at over 8200 registered members, but most traffic is guest readers who can view the marketplace without registring. With 80,000-100,000 visits a month, it's a lot of traffic that could potentially read the ad for a book being sold in our marketplace (which is really hot right now as students are looking for textbooks). And it's free (no commission).

That said, I wouldn't limit myself to just MI. In the past I've been able to sell all of my textbooks via online sources and set my own price, then email them a safe meeting place on campus (MILLS library lobby seems to be the most popular place haha) and exchange the book for cash. Easiest way to do business. I would post the ad on MI's marketplace, but also on Facebook's Marketplace (great place to post), as well as Title's free BOOKSWAP service which gets a lot of good traffic too and works similar to MI's marketplace. I'd either stick with those and give it a week to sell... and then go to Undercovers. Or, I would go to Undercovers first, put a price tag on the book that is higher than what I'd ask for elsewhere (to cover their commission cost) and then list the book online as well and see which sells first. Ie.. put the book in undercovers at $62 and then list it on MI/FB/Bookswap for $50 and if I make a sale online, go take back my book from Undercovers.

Originally Posted by Chad

@Huzaifa We're currently at over 8200 registered members, but most traffic is guest readers who can view the marketplace without registring. With 80,000-100,000 visits a month, it's a lot of traffic that could potentially read the ad for a book being sold in our marketplace (which is really hot right now as students are looking for textbooks). And it's free (no commission).

That said, I wouldn't limit myself to just MI. In the past I've been able to sell all of my textbooks via online sources and set my own price, then email them a safe meeting place on campus (MILLS library lobby seems to be the most popular place haha) and exchange the book for cash. Easiest way to do business. I would post the ad on MI's marketplace, but also on Facebook's Marketplace (great place to post), as well as Title's free BOOKSWAP service which gets a lot of good traffic too and works similar to MI's marketplace. I'd either stick with those and give it a week to sell... and then go to Undercovers. Or, I would go to Undercovers first, put a price tag on the book that is higher than what I'd ask for elsewhere (to cover their commission cost) and then list the book online as well and see which sells first. Ie.. put the book in undercovers at $62 and then list it on MI/FB/Bookswap for $50 and if I make a sale online, go take back my book from Undercovers.

Chad, is there a way to browse the marketplace by separating it into "Buy" or "Sell?"

It's kind of a pain to browse through all those Selling ads when you want to browse the buying ones. xD

Originally Posted by Chad

Or, I would go to Undercovers first, put a price tag on the book that is higher than what I'd ask for elsewhere (to cover their commission cost) and then list the book online as well and see which sells first. Ie.. put the book in undercovers at $62 and then list it on MI/FB/Bookswap for $50 and if I make a sale online, go take back my book from Undercovers.

Lol that's exactly what I do Sorry I should have elaborated! The Price at undercovers is always higher then MI/Facebook!

I was just at undercovers, bought a book for about a third of the new price, amazing condition. the entire time i was there there were at least 5 or 10 people inside, if you put your books in chances are someone will buy them.

i like it, especially because i don't always want to put in lots of effort selling my own books, they'll sell them for me.