Update Announcements by Craig Stark #156, 16 May 2011

Having trouble finding quality inventory? You don't have to leave home to find it - and still, after all these years, eBay is an excellent inventory source. Time and time again books come up that are poorly described or photographed. Or underpriced. Or all of the above! If you've tried this before and been disappointed with your results, it's possible that two of BookThink's products could help. First, our How to Buy Inventory Online series (now in PDF format) shows you how, step by step, to build search strings and conduct effective searches for books you can profit from. There are also tutorials on creative searching strategies that you might never have thought of. At $14.99, it's still a bargain. Purchase it here. Second, BookHunt - an application designed specifically for book scouting on eBay. Once configured, it runs 24/7 in the background and alerts you when your search strings locate potential inventory. Purchase it for $19.99 here, or buy it bundled with the How to Buy Inventory Online series for $29.99 here. BookHunt comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, and lifetime upgrades are free.

Speaking of applications that can help you find inventory, MediaScouter recently introduced a feature-rich scouting app for Android phones - Pocket Profit. Since I'm an iPhone user, I asked a good bookselling friend, Mary Kerosky, to test drive it and write a review for BookThink. The result follows.