Ebay vs Amazon?

schmickleicklepickle

hello!

I have been a regular ebay buyer/seller for many years but becoming a bit disillusioned as a seller. I have several books and DVDs to sell but it seems hard to make a profit on these on Ebay given the huge fees for media stuff.

I am therefor thinking about listing these items on Amazon marketplace. I have bought through this but never sold. Are there any hints/tips from experienced users?

Is the general concensus that Amazon is better than Ebay for these items or vice versa?

many thanks in advance for any suggestions!

aliwali

Hi
I have sold a few books on amazon that didn't look like they would sell on ebay. I like it because you don't have to pay to list them and only pay when they sell. Never tried dvd's but I have a few cd's I might try this week.

The only downside is that you have to wait for them to sell, there is no end date as such. Oh and you have to check daily as something may sell and you are meant to send within 48 hours of the sale.

Good luck
Alison

Premier_2

If you think ebay fees are high, wait until amazon bill you :eek:

Also watch out for auto pricing tools on amazon, they'll continually undercut any price you set.

soolin

I use both and tend to put the very cheap and the very expensive books on ebay and the mid priced ones on Amazon. The Amazon fees are steep compared to ebay but only paid when a book sells, hence all my mid price items being liste don there. The cheap books are difficult to turn a profit on and I can't be botheed to store them so I ebay them and if they don't sell I charity shop them. The very expensive books will try on both, ebay for the immediate exposure and because I can list them for 10p and Amazon just to sit there and wait for a buyer.

schmickleicklepickle

HHHmmmm - doesn't sound like I'd make much profit on Amazon then! Thanks for the info folks..... don't like the idea of having to check all the time - what happens if you go on holiday?!

Premier_2

schmickleicklepickle wrote: »

...what happens if you go on holiday?!

Amazon have a vacation setting for just such eventuality

But it takes about 48 hours to take effect sometimes, so set it early and can take about the same time to come back on line.

soolin

schmickleicklepickle wrote: »

HHHmmmm - doesn't sound like I'd make much profit on Amazon then! Thanks for the info folks..... don't like the idea of having to check all the time - what happens if you go on holiday?!

It's always worth checking Amazon out though, just put the iSBN number in and see what others have it listed for and ..importantly..check out the ranking to see if it is a good seller or not.

vangirl_2

Just looked into selling my books on Amazon but so many are selling at 0.01 which after postage and fees would make me a loss even if i used second class postage. I dont know how anyone could make a profit on Amazon.

amcluesent

I've listed 20 mixed CD and books on Amazon and carefully priced to be at the lowest end. After six weeks, still waiting for a bite...

soolin

amcluesent wrote: »

I've listed 20 mixed CD and books on Amazon and carefully priced to be at the lowest end. After six weeks, still waiting for a bite...

The rankings are the important bit on Amazon as they indicate how likely something is to sell in the short term.

This for instance shows the highest selling books and changes hourly:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_ts_zbw_b_book_more?&pf_rd_p=195575191&pf_rd_s=right-5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=266239&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0APRDCFX0APSRQNVPJYS

basically the further down the ranking, as can be seen easily from the main page when you check out the book title the longer it is likely to take to sell. There are exceptions, some book smay be well down the listings purely because there have been no copies available to sell for ages, but if you list where there are already multiple copies and the ranking is poor you will have a long wait.

When I sort my books with a view to dumping them I don't only go by price, I use the rankings as well to decide what to keep and what to dump.

liquidlives

vangirl wrote: »

Just looked into selling my books on Amazon but so many are selling at 0.01 which after postage and fees would make me a loss even if i used second class postage. I dont know how anyone could make a profit on Amazon.

I think those sellers are warehouses or something that have big piles of books sitting around. If you've got a book that's not that popular, I'm sure you could make a profit. It's not just ordinary people that sell through the Marketplace, companies do too. I've bought CDs from American distributors because a) Amazon didn't have them or b) they were fairly cheap.