Selling Your Stuff on Amazon Part 12 - Advice for newbies in first two posts

soolin

mattymoo wrote: »

^ Thank you so much for the scanner info. Will be great for Amazon as well as DVD / Game household inventory software. I might even pay the kids to do the donkey work

Don't forget the real work is deciding on the condition and noting any defects , you only save the seconds it takes to key in a barcode with a scanner. Once you list regularly you can touch type the numbers as they tend to follow a logical sort of patterm and your brain gets wired to see them.

scarlet74

soolin wrote: »

Sellers, we have a problem.

Amazon have introduced free postage on all their items with no minimum charge. Sit and think for a minute how that will kill some of our second hand sales.

Not really helped by this little hint from this week's Martin's Money Tips:

Buy from a third party off the 'Amazon Marketplace' platform and you'll pay postage set by the retailer, not Amazon, which can often be pricey

...when in fact the reverse is true in most cases! If enough people believe this to be true, it really will kill off Marketplace sales!

philbatch

Does anyone think its more worthwhile selling on E-bay rather than Amazon?

soolin

philbatch wrote: »

Does anyone think its more worthwhile selling on E-bay rather than Amazon?

I currently do both, plus i have listings on Greenmetropolis, ebid and Priceminster as well. However with the new free postage on all media rules coming in on ebay this weekend that will mean I may have to rethink some categories of book sales.

Annabee

Hope you don't mind me posting on your thread people. I am a buyer not a seller and would just like to know:

What are the rules set by Amazon on sending out items? Should they go first or second class and within how many days after order is made?

I ordered some new books last week, one from Amazon itself and 2 from sellers and nothing has arrived yet... I am quickly running out of reading material.

If I knew the rules, I would know whether I'd be justified in not giving out 5 stars - or do you think its the postal strike?

Usually I have found Amazon sellers much better than Amazon SuperSaver, which seems to be getting slower and slower.

marybary

Thank you for all your useful information.

soolin

Annabee wrote: »

Hope you don't mind me posting on your thread people. I am a buyer not a seller and would just like to know:

What are the rules set by Amazon on sending out items? Should they go first or second class and within how many days after order is made?

I ordered some new books last week, one from Amazon itself and 2 from sellers and nothing has arrived yet... I am quickly running out of reading material.

If I knew the rules, I would know whether I'd be justified in not giving out 5 stars - or do you think its the postal strike?

Usually I have found Amazon sellers much better than Amazon SuperSaver, which seems to be getting slower and slower.

Sellers must ship within 2 working days. So if you buy on Monday the stuff must be in the post by close of business on Wednesday. Sellers can use 2nd class though and with the on off strikes at the moment stuff may be delayed.

The system also should send you an email when your item has been depatched, but many people don't seem to get them either because of hard spam filters or because Amazon are glitchy. If sellers are delaye din posting Amazon should notify you about that as well, but again glitches mean that is not 100% accurate.

wendym

Variable Amazon shipping rates

I have just noticed that the rate for Amazon sellers is not always the standard fixed rate - some light weight toys (for which the fixed rate as a non-pro seller is admittedly steep at £4.43) are advertised with P&P as £1.75, £1.95 etc.

I presume this is available only to commercial sellers, and that the only way round it is to offer a partial refund in your description, and hope potential buyers notice. There's a wide variation in perfumes, too.

soolin

This is something to do with some sellers being on seller central, and I've never understood it!

However, I would strongly caution about using refunds to bring prices down, refunds count against sellers in the matrix and if you do too many for whatever reason you face suspension. Just alter your start price to wipe out the additional postage costs.

wendym

Thanks - I haven't actually offered refunds fortunately - will just have to accept that some things aren't worth listing.