selling your stuff on Amazon...part 2

numberthree

I must admit I have had wonderful service from the Post Office, both in receiving and sending mail. Our village PO changed hands just before Christmas and after a definite baptism of fire the new Postmistress has got into the swing of things and is very nice, although I find her assistant a little too 'friendly' (nosey!).

However, it looks like I may have my first 'lost' parcel in 18 months of selling books - or rather 3 of them. I sent out 3 books on 9th Jan (all 2nd class) and it looks like non have arrived yet and 2 of them are swapits (sadly it looks like HOLsale knows about one of them)!!! They were all sent together at the same time from the PO and they all have my address on the back for returns - I'm starting to feel a little suspicious!

Fortunately I do have COPs but it is annoying to have to wait over another week to see if they materialise until being able to start a claim. Hopefully they will all arrive as that is really the point of posting something and I don't really want to have the hastle of making a claim. Also it is a bit embarrassing to ask the intended recipient if they wouldn't mind going to their sorting office to check if it's there, just in case the Postie didn't leave a card. - mind you all of these should have gone through a letter box with no trouble. The funny thing is that in the batch I sent out I had one for Germany and that actually arrived in 3 days!!

Ah - got all that off my chest now - just feeling a bit frustrated, everything seemed to be going so well!

soolin

Lost Amazon parcels is one that I have been concerned with. Has anyone made a claim against the RM for loss, and if so how much did the RM pay out?

On ebay the RM pay out item cost but not any post and packing element, but the Amazon invoices are nmore confusing..so I wonder if it is just possible to do a screen grab of the selling price and claim for that?

Soo

apprentice_tycoon

Hi Soo and numberthree - I've lost 2 amazon books but they weren't worth the bother of claiming for them so I've no experience of what they count as the cost of the book - clearly a 1 penny book pay out is not on!

There might be some information on the 'seller connections' forum but I wonder if the email that lists all the figures, the 'sold - dispatch now' one would prove that the post allowance is part of the value of the book. The PO must have some experience of amazon market place claims - hopefully?

seabiscuit_2

righto another question from me :-)

ive been reading the pro-merchant account thingy and it seems to suggest that it covers the month it is started in - is that right? i.e. if i take it out between today and the end of january - ALL january sales will be covered by it and i dont have to pay the extra

or have i got the wrong end of the stick and it only works from the day it is taken out?

btw i dont really think my post workers hate me, its a small village shop and i know by going there i am making sure they cant claim they dont get used enough (always a queue even at this time of year)

nutty

Can some one help I sold my first book last week I have put my account info in so they can pay into my bank it said it will transfer on the 14th but the money still is not there and when I go to transfer is says I cant

any help would be great

apprentice_tycoon

seabiscuit - it works on a calendar basis, I joined up on the 11th and my subs get taken out on the 11 of every month for the month ahead, if I cancelled it today I would still get the benefit till the 10 feb then it would finish.

nutty - the payment takes around 5 or 6 days to actually get from amazon to your account I'm afraid

voodoozoe

I have just had a look at a book I want to list on Amazon...to buy it new from them it is £5.99 PLUS a special surcharge of £1.99...also you have to buy more stuff than you want to get the free postage!!!!

So you'd think I'd be able to get a reasonable price for it???? Not so...its a blinkin PENNY BOOK!!!!!! I put this down to people being daft and going mad undercutting each other because we could ALL easily make a few quid by slightly undercutting Amazon.

On the other side of the coin, I also have a Freddie Mercury paperback book that you can get new from Amazon for £5.99...so how come the cheapest used book is £49.99!!!!!!!! And that is based in UK.

soolin

I've just checked some of my listings to see whether I should drop the price a little, and found that although I am the cheapest seller on one book by a long way Amazon themselves have suddenly got this rare book back in stock and have undercut us all..so that's had to be reduced significantly.

I also sold a book yesterday which was the same day I listed it, and my first to Europe. I've just posted it out and was surprised that it wasn't too expensive to send using printed paper rate at all, I'm going to revise a few more of my books to include Europe now.

Soo

apprentice_tycoon

Regarding the undercutting that Zoe mentioned...I look to see how many stupidly priced listings there are - they are often in a chunk of 5 or 6 daft ones, then they get more sensibly priced at over 70p or £1 and put my book in with those because the penny books will sell and if they don't get replaced with other penny books then the price will rise again in time - time being the key word, if you can sit tight things will move eventually.
If give lots of info in the description and you are offering a quick turnaround then you can often sell over the heads of the penny books.

voodoozoe

Well there is some sort of rule in business which says not to get into "price wars" isn't there?!!!


Here's a question for you all...if you had someone wanting a swapsie (for a very light cheap book of yours) and you had a choice between:

a) A book that has a few on, the lowest price being £8.95 from the UK

or

b) A book that has no others on at all so you COULD ask for what you want (however unrealistic?) but in reality you know NOTHING about this type of book or its value if any

I want them both!!!!!!