Video transcription below (unedited):

Hey everyone Matthew Osborn here, I'm going to bring you five hacks to improve your book scouting for a beginner. Now I'm not an expert at book scouting or selling on Amazon for that matter, I'm probably fall into more of the beginner category myself. But these five tips have helped me improve my sourcing the most, and I wanted to share them with you. If you're an experienced book scattered, experienced seller in Amazon, these tips will probably be pretty basic to you, but you might find some value in them as well.

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Let's get started on tip number one.

tip number one is use an external Bluetooth scanner.

Now when I first started, I was just using my phone using the taking a picture of the barcode on my phone with the app, whether it be the Amazon seller app or another app, normally they have the functionality to be able to live, get the barcode with the phone, scan it and be able to get your results from and when I first started, I thought the phone was extremely quick. I was wondering why people even invested so much money into an external scanner because the phone to me at least seemed very, very quick. And then I actually got an external scanner and found that I was completely wrong and that you can go so much faster using an external scanner than you can with your phone and makes scouting a lot more enjoyable.

And you can get through a lot more books in a shorter amount of time. And that's how you improve your efficiency with book scouting is getting through more books and less amount of time making faster decisions. The more books you scan, whether you're got a high accepted or a low accept rate, the more books you're going to take home, the more books are going to be the list and therefore the more books you're going to be able to sell.

So if you want to make money, the easiest way is to invest into a Bluetooth, invest in a Bluetooth external scanner. And it will improve your efficiency 10 probably it really is about 10 times faster, I think using a Bluetooth scanner than trying to use your phone's camera. The one I use is the LPN 2002. You can go over to the book flippers channel, and he's got reviews and all the main scanners that you can buy out there, you can pick the one that looks right for you or refurbished OPM 2002 will be anywhere from 60 to $100. Just look on eBay or Amazon for some used offers. So tip number one, use a Bluetooth scanner.

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Tip number two:

Don't assume others know what they're doing.

Now this might sound a little mean, I'm not trying to make it not trying to put others down. But when you walk into let's say a library sale or thrift store, or a library, just their normal book sales that have ongoing and you see another scout or they are you see someone that was scouting is leaving the store, don't assume that everything valuable is gone and that the person took everything that could be taken out of that store. It's a big mistake to make is when I was making a lot when I was first starting every time I'd seen other scatter there, I just go somewhere else. Assuming that I was futilely to be going there and scanning everything they just scanned.

Except was a big realization for me and my one of my first library sales, all the nonfiction section, it was like four different bookshelves of it I wasn't there fast enough. So there's about five or six other scatters all going through the nonfiction section. And I was just stuck in the fiction section until they cleared out, they cleared all out. And I was thinking everything is valuables probably gone.

There's five of them going through all these books. But I was like what the heck I have time, I'm just going to go through and scan all these again anyways. And I found 20 books out of these four little bookshelf, some of them being 3040 $50 in value that all five of those people missed because they're using different software, they weren't scanning everything they're picking and choosing which ones look good to them. Or there is making bad purchasing decisions and they didn't realize what data they were looking at. So don't automatically assume everyone knows what they're doing go through, you can still scan, you can still probably pull out a lot of books, even right after another scanner, a scout has gone into your location. So tip number two, don't assume people automatically know what they're doing.

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Tip number three

Get there early

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Now I know this can be hard depending if you have a full time job or what type of job you're working. But when possible, especially for library sales, get there early, it's in your best benefit. Now, just the other tip, tip number two is it doesn't matter if a scout has been there, you can still go through but of course, it's best if you can be the first one through to get any new books that have been put out at a library thrift store. And also at a library sale, it's even more important that you can get to the better sections of books first before all the other scholars get there. And take a lot of the good stuff out before you're able to.

So when possible, get there early. And I'm talking early as and when the store opens, especially on the weekends. know a lot of the thrift stores around here have people outside waiting when the doors open. The scouts go in, they grab the good books, and then they leave. So if you were to get there 234 hours after they open the weekend, a lot of the books are probably already gone, you can still find some, but a lot of the good stuffs probably going to be already taken since they're probably restocked that morning or the night before. So get there early when possible.

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Tip number four

Get a real scouting app

I see a lot of people especially people are starting out, they're just using the Amazon seller app, which is all right. If you're just trying to sell your first few books, you're trying to see if this is something that works if it's something that would be good for you, by all means use the free options available to you. But if you're trying to use this as a business, you're trying to be efficient, and get the most for your money app is worth the investment. Being able to scan of the look and know instantly or relatively instantly. Whether it should buy it or whether you should pass on it is a huge advantage to standing something at the Amazon seller app. having to scroll through different pages, look at multiple prices and assess whether it's a good buying decision or not. efficiency will allow you to scan more books and as I said, the more books you scan, regardless of your except right, the more books you'll be able to take home with you sell and the bigger you'll be able to grow your business.

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So get a scouting app. Of course, I'm partial scout IQ. The links to scout IQ are in the description below. If you've never used it sign up for a trial. If you're currently using the Amazon seller app or even if you're using another scouting app, I recommend just try the free trial scout IQ and see if you like it and see if it improves your sourcing.

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Tip number five

Learn how to read the data.

Whether using the Amazon seller app or scout IQ or another book scouting app, know how to read and interpret the data that you're looking at. Triggers are great, and they're great stuff starting point.

And if you only went out triggers and never learned how to read the data, you'd be making a lot of probably good decisions, but you definitely bring home a lot of duds a lot of things that didn't sell. And you wouldn't really understand the business and how to price things, how to reprice things, etc. So get to know the data get to know what you're looking at to make the most informed decisions be able to go home from every single source with only the best books only the ones that you know, to the best of your knowledge will sell. Rather than just going in blind not knowing what data you're looking at. And taking on anything your triggers say to take home. Know your data will very much improve your sourcing. If you use scout IQ.

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I'll put the link in the description of this video as well. There is an overview of what each screen does and what all the data means. And the screens. I highly recommend even if you're a veteran, the scouting that you go and look at that video, there might be some nuggets of knowledge in there, you didn't know about scoutIQ before some ways to interpret data differently than maybe you're currently doing. So go check out that video and learn to know your data to be able to make the best decisions while you're outsourcing.

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Alright, a bonus tip for you guys

Talk to employees

This is actually one of the best tips you've heard it included the first five, this really is probably one of the most valuable tips you can implement. To improve the amount of books that you're taking home and how you're taking them home is talk to the employees, the libraries, the thrift stores, library sales, that you're going to a few questions that I recommend you ask them is the easiest one, if you see an employee next to you, maybe even they're stacking some new books on the shelves. Ask them how often they restock their books. And employers are going to know for the most part how that bookstore operates how they normally put out new books.

So knowing how often they put on new books will help you know how often to repeat that source and how often they go. They're not only asked them how often they put out books, see if their books on specific days or specific times. If they tell you they put out books every Saturday morning, and every Wednesday night, you can know the best times to go to that store, and how often to repeat go into that store.

Thirdly, ask them, how they label their books know which books are new, and which books are old. As we discussed the thing as a week three update of the 100 book challenge in that playlist on my YouTube channel, you can see how you can find the newest books and avoid going to a source and scanning all the old books you scan the week before or two weeks before, that's the absolute biggest waste of time you could do is to read the work you've already done when you don't have to do that. So try and figure out what they do to know which books are new and which books are old.

And then finally, ask them what they do with books when they're overstocked or books that don't sell. A lot of times these places will just throw them in the recycler, they'll give them the summer recycler. And there might be an opportunity for you there to step in, and maybe help them sell some of these books especially there's a lot of overstock books that never even put out in the shelves be late, so many, which is very common with thrift shops, thrift stores, libraries, and things like that, because there's so many donations, that you might have a business opportunity there where you can get books that have never been scanned by anyone else. So talk to employees build relationships, and get to know how your individual sources work so you can best allocate your time and improve your efficiency with your sourcing.

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Bonus tip number two

Get uncomfortable.

It might sound weird, but you have no idea how many people just like to be comfortable, you probably yourself like to be comfortable. So when you're out of source, it's very common. If there's books up really high. There's books up, there's books down really low, there's books all stacked on top of each other, there's a section tucked in the corner that's hard to get to a books that other people have probably been more little less likely to go through those books than the ones easier to get to on the main shelves. So Rachel Piper books reached out to books, good books, they're stacked upside down and corners, wherever they are, they probably been on touch, no one's wanted to take the time to get to those.

And there might be some really good books there. I can't tell you how many times I've not wanted to go for something because it's either out of my way or don't want to reach for is tucked in or something else. But I take the time move on the books get to and sometimes those the most profitable books because they've been sitting there forever because no one's wanted to take the effort to get to them. So get uncomfortable reach I go down low, get books that are stacked on top of each other that other people are a little less likely to have already gone through and you can find some gems hidden in there.

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I hope these tips have been helpful to you let me know what helped you the most but then the comments below. So anyone watching this video in the future can see what's helped you just share which one of these tips maybe you didn't know about before that you can start implementing into your routine. So good luck sourcing this coming week.

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