3 Ways To Maximize Book Arbitrage Profits With Keepa

As of March 2021, Amazon.com was reported to have sold more than 75 million products. And believe it or not, the largest product category was books... 57.2 million books, to be exact.

And while there is millions of dollars to be made in selling books on Amazon, one aspect of online book arbitrage that is important to understand is that supply and demand has an impact on the market, and as a result, prices will fluctuate. To survive and thrive in this space, it's critical that you learn how to price and reprice your inventory effectively in order to maximize your success.

But where do you even start with pricing when there are over 50 million books to compare and analyze?

This can definitely be a daunting task, especially if you’re new to this market. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be. 

What if there was a solution that records and shares the pricing history of products sold on Amazon? A tool that could be accessed freely, enabling you to make well-informed decisions on exactly what books to purchase and where to price them to maximize profits… this is where Keepa comes in. 

Introducing Keepa

Keepa is a simple to use tool that helps sellers track Amazon prices and pricing history, and also provides you with alerts for profitable book opportunities. 

Getting started with Keepa is simple:

1. Visit the keepa.com website to quickly and easily install the Keepa browser extension (available on all browsers) that allows you to save time by managing your online book business in a single browser tab.
2. Download the free mobile app available on Google Play Store and App Store so you can continue to keep an eye on the prices anytime, anywhere.

3 Key Features Of Keepa & How To Maximize Profits

When you first get started with Keepa, there can be a lot of data that can become overwhelming (not knowing where to begin with analyzing various charts and graphs, which period to compare data points against, or even how to apply the correct filters, is normal when you’re new to this space). 

Yet to make your life easier, we recommend focusing on three fundamental features: Sales Rank History, Pricing History and Price Predictions

1. Sales rank history

With online book arbitrage, the goal is to have a fast inventory turnover (to sell a book within 90 days or sooner, and generate more revenue quickly). Some books sell faster than others, and you’ll also find that certain books that might have seasonal demand (a textbook will have a lower demand outside of textbook season and will suddenly see a boost in demand during the textbook season.)

By analyzing a book’s sales history, you’ll gain an understanding of its buying trends which will help you predict the demand (sales rank) during the next 90 days, which will help you to understand how likely your books are to sell during that period of time.

Using Keep will allow you to quickly and clearly identify the hit seasons, predict the future value and demand for books, and know which books to avoid altogether.

2. Pricing history

When deciding which books to buy, in order to maximize profits you’ll want to aim to buy books that are priced below their true market value. To determine whether you’re getting the best deal in the market, you can compare its current selling price against the 90-day or 12-month average with Keepa. 

Scenario 1: If a book is currently selling for $25 but the historical average price is usually $40, this is a good deal and you should purchase it.

Scenario 2: If a book is currently selling for $25 but the historical average is usually much cheaper at only $18, it’s overpriced… but that doesn’t mean there is no opportunity here. Keepa allows you to set up a price alert for when it returns to its lower historical average price, providing you with the opportunity to buy low and resell higher.

Scenario 3: In the instance where only you and Amazon are selling a particular book, and there are no other third-party FBA competitors, it is crucial that you analyse Amazon’s pricing history for that product.

Remember, Amazon can drop its prices at any moment. So the price you set today may be undercut by Amazon tomorrow. Keepa will allow you to understand the historical average prices in order to understand if Amazon is currently selling the book above or below this average. To make an educated purchasing decision and price your books strategically against Amazon, this data is critical to seeking out profitable book opportunities.

Getting this data in Keepa is easy- simply click on the “Amazon” option on Keepa and let the data speak for itself. 

Keepa gives you detailed pricing history on over 500 million Amazon products to ensure you get the best deal and avoid buying an overpriced item.

Note: Keepa is not tracking FBA offers yet. The pricing charts on Keepa reflect merchant fulfilled prices only.

3. Price predictions

When referring to data from the previous year, look around for any sharp drops or spikes in price which last more than a day. Although previous patterns will not be an exact indicator of what to expect in the following year, the data can help you anticipate big price shifts.

Another very useful feature available on Keepa is that it allows you to view the actual 90-day pricing average. This data is easily accessible on the statistics tab below the graph- hover your cursor over this area and a pop up box displaying the average prices will appear.

Keepa also provides key insights from previous market trends to prepare you for the new sales cycle. 

Note: Keepa pricing charts reflect what an item was being listed for, not the selling price. Keepa does not know what an item sold for.

How to use Keepa with Zen Arbitrage for online book arbitrage

Keepa could not be easier to use with Zen Arbitrage. Zen Arbitrage links directly to the Keepa webpage for every product inside Zen, meaning that when you’re in the Zen, you can simply click on the Keepa icon on the right-hand column which will open Keepa in a separate tab. The corresponding data for the Zen product you were viewing will then be displayed. 

Zen Arbitrage shows the 12-month average rank, so if you want the 90-day average - which we recommend, select three months in Keepa, and you can see the last 90 days of sales rank history.

Another way to access Keepa is by installing the extension so that the same data is displayed right there on the Amazon page rather than being redirected to a separate tab. When you click over to the Amazon page to make a purchase you can double-check the FBA offers, with all this data right there for you and at a glance.

We also recommend that you check out the statistics tab, where you can see six-month averages along with all-time averages. Since Keepa started monitoring Amazon years ago, many items will have a long history of data for you to look at to make informed buying decisions. 

To sum this all up, while a quick glance at Keepa might leave you feeling a little overwhelmed, by focusing on the 3 fundamental features that we discussed, you will be able to quickly spot profitable book opportunities and begin building your inventory.