Zen Arbitrage vs eFlip | Which is the better Online Book Arbitrage Software?

In the world where everything is almost digital, most businesses are taking their stores online. Most may put up an online store and sell their products and services there, while a lot of business people choose to sell their items on big shopping websites like Amazon and eBay. Nevertheless, online selling is pretty convenient especially in times like these where 1.8 billion people in the world already engage in online shopping.

Of course, you find pretty much everything to buy on the internet but for this article we’ll focus on the online arbitrage that has been slowly making it into the spotlight: online book arbitrage!

Online Book Arbitrage is the process of looking for low-priced books on Amazon and reselling them on the same platform at your own decided price. It is a business that is good for individuals who would like to work from the comfort of their own home or want a different source of income besides their primary way to make money.

Now, you can choose to source for these low-priced books yourself, purchase them and have them shipped to your place, package them, and send them out. That in itself is also online book arbitrage.

However, there’s a much easier way for you to engage in the online arbitration business without touching even a single book or having to pour through countless book-selling websites. That is through using an online book arbitrage software that does most of the heavy lifting for you!

With all the book arbitrage automatons that is available on the market, how will you, as a business owner, determine which is the best one to use for maximum profitability? The two of the most praised software are Zen Arbitrage and eFlip. Don’t worry if you don’t know which between the two to pick! In this Zen Arbitrage vs eFlip Comparison, we hope to help you make a decision.

We are going to compare both software based on Features, Price, Training, and Support. For an in-depth review on Zen Arbitrage, you can read it up here: Zen Arbitrage Review for 2020. It covers all of the features of Zen Arbitrage and explains why it’s one of the absolute best to use.

First, we’ll take a look at these two softwares at a glance. This includes their origins, the masterminds behind the screens, and other tidbits of information.

The software scans numerous book-selling websites so that you can purchase them and resell them at a different price. After the automation scans the websites to locate the cheap books, you can lock in the trade-in price, purchase the books of your choice, trade them in, and then profit by selling them at a higher price. You can choose whatever books you want to resell and you are also the one who decides how much you’re going to resell those books. Online book arbitration sounds a bit complex, but with the right tools you’ll be making cash in no time.

The first thing you may need to get started on online book arbitrage in either Zen Arbitrage or eFlip is an FBA Account. FBA or Fulfillment By Amazon is a service that is offered by Amazon that provides storage, packaging, and shipping services to their sellers.

There are two (2) types of accounts that Amazon offers its sellers: Individual and Professional. The Individual Account does not require a subscription (meaning it’s free) but you have to pay a $0.99 flat rate on all Amazon FBA products that you sell. If you are just starting out and do not plan on purchasing a big amount of books yet, it is advisable to get an Individual account first. Later on, you can upgrade your account to the Professional one.

The Professional account requires you to pay a monthly subscription fee of $39.99, but you are not obligated to pay the individual seller fee of $0.99 per item anymore.

In the context of online book arbitrage, having a Fulfillment By Amazon Account will allow you to sell books on their platform. They will take care of picking up your books, packing them, and shipping them to your customers.

Whether or not you choose to get an Individual or Professional Fulfillment By Amazon Account, you may need a starting capital of around $600-$900 to get your online book arbitrage up and running. That’s actually a very generous amount as there are other users who have said to have started with a lot less. It will depend entirely upon the number of books that you purchase and decide to ship out.

Now that we have the basic requirements needed for you to open an online book arbitrage, let’s take a look at how Zen Arbitrage and eFlip came into the picture.

Zen Arbitrage is an online automation created by Peter Valley in the year 2015. He has been an Amazon seller for over a decade. He is known for being the most published author on Amazon selling. Peter literally authored the book on online book arbitrage entitled, Online Book Arbitrage: The Weird System I Discovered To Run An Amazon Business From A Starbucks Patio, which is a free resource that you can download on the Zen Arbitrage website.

He created the software with one goal in mind: To run an Amazon business from anywhere in the world. With freedom being his main inspiration, Peter developed the software with the hopes of sharing his knowledge with the world as well as his desire to work from the comfort of his own home from a computer or laptop!

eFlip is Zen Arbitrage’s main competitor. It was masterminded by Caleb Roth, who also dabbled in the bookselling business on Amazon for the past decade. However in 2014 he decided to join the FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) trope and has been highly successful in his endeavors thus far.

Caleb’s goal is to encourage fellow booksellers and other interested individuals to join the FBA book bandwagon. He has a background in marketing and data analytics and has worked for a Fortune 100 company for more than 5 years. His expertise will be the anchor that will entice you to join in on online book arbitrage.

Let us move onto the main reason why you’re reading this article in the first place: the features that will make each software shine in the spotlight! This will cover the main features that Zen Arbitrage and eFlip brag, the value, and little bonus knickknacks each have. Studying each and identifying which is more beneficial will be crucial to your success.

Upon first glance, the main web page of Zen Arbitrage is full of testimonials of its success, the tools and support that they offer, pricing, how the process works, and more.

Let us delve deeper into each of the essential features that will benefit your business or give you more knowledge on the software:

1. The Main Website – Contains the FAQs, Features, Testimonials, About Page, Pricing, and tons of videos that encourage why you should start online book arbitrage today. As I explored the website further, I was more and more pleased with the amount of detail that they put into their work without making it sound very complex.

2. The 14 Day Trial Period – Zen Arbitrage was generous enough to offer a 14 Day Trial for their software to let you get a feel of what online book arbitration is like.

3. Automatic Scanning – Online arbitration requires you to sift through numerous websites to purchase books so that you can resell them. With the Zen Arbitrage automation, you don’t have to search through the thousands upon thousands of websites just to source for books! The automation searches and sources your books for you and provides the FBA prices with a click of a button.

4. No Need To Calculate Shipping Fees – Prices also include the shipping costs of books that you are buying from a third party merchant!

5. Built-In Profit Tracking – Zen Arbitrage has a tab that you can check to see just how much money you’ve been making off the platform. Their comprehensive dashboard is easy to understand even by beginners like me!

6. Zen Arbitrage Marketplace – If you have no time to filter your searches and want immediate results, you can refer to the Zen Arbitrage Marketplace. Other users have uploaded pre-sorted lists of profitable books that they don’t necessarily want to sell but think would be profitable for other users. That’s quite a supportive community to have!

7. Prep Service – If you never want to touch a single book in your entire online book arbitrage venture, you can opt in for Zen Arbitrage’s prep service. They are the ones who will take care of receiving the books you purchased, inspect them for any damages, report back to you the state of the book (whether it’s in good condition or not), clean and wrap the book, and send it back out.

The website looks very sleek compared to Zen Arbitrage. It shows the simple process of online book arbitrage. When checking the different tabs, it’s very minimalist and easy to comprehend. However, I found that Zen Arbitrage shares a lot more information than the eFlip web page. There are more free resources to access on the Zen site, and they clearly lay out the features that they offer.

Here are the key features that eFlip offers:

1. Search Through Amazon’s Book Catalogue – Like Zen Arbitrage, you’re able to search through thousands of books to see the FBA prices. However, these are not immediately displayed like Zen Arbitrage where the prices are immediately presented. The prices are still displayed on a different database. It’s not a very big factor that affects performance or profitability, but it’s still convenient that Zen shows all the information at first glance.

2. The 21 Day Trial Period – Unlike Zen Arbitrage, which offers a two-week trial period, eFlip offers a good 3 weeks or 21 days.

3. eFlip Book Tracker – This spreadsheet provided by eFlip called eFlip Book Tracker contains all your book purchases.

4. eFlip Outliers – The platform brags about having a secret weapon called Outliers. These are two unique filters to online arbitrage: eScore and Used Buy Box Price. If you refine your search using eScore you will see the number of days that a book has sold a copy in the past six months.

5. Other Variants – While Zen Arbitrage is strictly an online book arbitrage software, eFlip offers other items that you can sell. Specifically, these are CDs, DVDs, and Vinyl records. However, they are sold separately at different prices. This is a nice added feature for those who are interested in the variants that are offered by eFlip and who are willing to add an extra $50 to be able to purchase and sell them.

After discussing the features, let us compare Zen Arbitrage and eFlip in terms of price and value. You can actually start your online book arbitrage with a capital of around $500, but to be truly comfortable that you won’t overspend, you can save up around $600-$900. That will already cover your monthly FBA subscription (if you chose the Professional Account), other Amazon expenses, and your online book arbitrage software of choice.

Previously mentioned, Zen Arbitrage offers a 14 Day Free Trial Period so that you can get a feel of the software. After the 14 Day Free Trial Period, you will be charged $97.00 per month. It already includes ALL the features of Zen Arbitrage, and you can cancel your subscription any time. With everything that Zen Arbitrage includes in its software, you’re definitely in for a very good financial ride if you utilize the tool wisely.

The eFlip software offers a 21 Day Free Trial Period. After which, you will pay a subscription fee of $79.00 per month. Although it is cheaper than Zen Arbitrage, it does not quite have as many beneficial features.

Not everyone is suddenly an expert after reading a 2000-word article on a single product. Of course, you will need lots of training on the software and tools to master in order for you to be confident enough to start your online arbitration business. Luckily, both Zen Arbitrage and eFlip provide these. Let us take a look at each:

To this date, Zen Arbitrage has over 80 training materials that include articles and countless videos. Peter Valley even throws in his self-authored book “Online Book Arbitrage” for free. His main web page already has tons of resources for you to refer to and even steps you need to take when embarking on this new journey.

Once you sign up, you’re presented with even more resources! Peter records the training sessions himself and covers almost every minuscule detail on how the software works and how you can maximize your profit. The resources also include purchasing strategies for beginners until you can develop your own!

If you don’t have time to sit down for their webinars, you can always refer to the videos at your own convenience and open them when you need specific information. You will never feel as if you’re lacking knowledge because Peter made sure to make the process as easy to understand as possible.

On the other hand, eFlip only offers 13 video courses that tackle online arbitration and the software. Compared to the number of videos, articles, and PDFs that Zen Arbitrage offers, it’s not a lot to go by. However, it does cover enough for you to know what you’re going to get yourself into.

Still, I would give this point to Zen Arbitrage for making sure that their users will be well-equipped with a deeper understanding of what book arbitration is and not just how their software works.

If you’re having some trouble getting used to the software and need some help, you should reach out for some help. Both Zen Arbitrage and eFlip have support systems to back their users up whenever they are in need of assistance. It might not be one of the strongest reasons why you should choose an online book arbitrage software, but you should highly consider it nevertheless. Here are what they offer:

Zen Arbitrage boasts of the support that they give to their users and I have to join them! They have a private Facebook group where other users can share their testimonials, their tips and strategies, and hold discussions on certain issues or topics. It’s a lucrative place to join and I highly enjoy that feature.

Another support feature that Zen Arbitrage offers that I truly appreciate is the fact that Peter Valley provided his personal phone number to you with an invitation to contact him at any time! If you’ve got a question or concern regarding the software, you can simply send him a quick text message and he will reply. But wait, there’s more! Peter also provided his email address for more in-depth discussions on whatever you have in mind. Neat, right?

Not only all of that, but the Zen Arbitrage has FAQs and a separate Resources and Training tab that contains all the answers to your questions.

eFlip also offers some support, but it’s not as thriving as the offer that Zen Arbitrage provides. They have eFlip University, which contains their resources, a private Facebook group as well, and Caleb also provides his contact details like his work email address. eFlip also provides some contact points on their website.

However, I would give this point to Zen Arbitrage as well because of the vastness of the support that I and a lot of other users feel compared to eFlip.

Ultimately, both Zen Arbitrage and eFlip offer features that are unique to each software. However, I would choose Zen Arbitrage over eFlip due to the fact that when you tie all the features together including price and value, training, and support, you get a software and complementary tools that cannot compare to anything else. Thus, the winner for this Zen Arbitrage vs eFlip review goes to none other than ZEN ARBITRAGE!

Have you tried both software before? What do you think of the features? Comment down below or share it with your friends.