Welcome to ScoutIQ Day 4 with ScoutIQ!
In the past few days, we’ve covered how to get set up, find and scan books, and how to pick out the profitable ones.
Today, we’re covering how to do all of that, 10x faster.
When it comes to scanning used books at thrift stores, garage sales, and libraries, the average accept rate you can expect is around 2-5%. Meaning, if you scan 100 books, you’ll find 5 profitable ones.
So the goal is to scan through the bad books as quickly as possible to take more profitable books home with you. Here are the top 3 tips for finding 10X more books:
You might be able to scan 100 books in 1 hour, but with these tips you can scan up to 500 books in the same time.
That means you’ll find more profitable books in less time.
Pro-tip 1: Consider investing in a Bluetooth scanner
A Bluetooth scanner is a small handheld device that allows you to scan any barcode and send the data to your phone almost instantly.
With a Bluetooth scanner and 60 minutes, you can scan between 300-400 books, and end up with 15-20 books you can make a profit on.
Assuming you’ll make $5 profit on each book, that comes out to $75 an hour.
Not too bad for an hour’s worth of “work”?
Pro-tip 2: Look for colored stickers
One challenge you might run into when scanning books is going back to the same thrift store and not knowing which books you’ve already scanned.
Here’s how to avoid this happening to you:
Most shops will put a sticker on the books telling shoppers which are the new books added. Ask one of the staff: "Which color stickers are new this week?".
This way, when you go back to the same source next week, instead of scanning all the books again (many of which you've already scanned), you can scan only the books with the newest sticker and forget the rest.
Action Step Day 4: Try a Bluetooth scanner! (We recommend a few popular models here, but any that can be paired in HID/keyboard mode will work!) and only scan books with the newest colored sticker at your local thrift store or library. We’ll be back tomorrow with another email but if you don’t want to wait, check it out today!
-The ScoutIQ Team