Selling Your Stuff on Amazon Part 13 - Advice for newbies in first two posts

20thcenturycat

Thanks teapot2! I read through the help files, and I couldn't work out whether you are supposed to put the barcodes on the books, or put the books in padded envelopes and put the barcodes on those. I will try contacting Amazon themselves.

20thcenturycat

Hi Soolin it's 30p per cubic foot per month, increasing to 40p in the winter (presumably because of Christmas?). Yup that's a hard one to factor in alright. But lets say you send 30 books in a shipment to FBA. That will come in at a couple of cubic feet I think... Lets say you add 30p to the fees for each book sold to cover this. I worked out that for a book bought for 33p that would normally be a penny book on Amazon, you could sell for £2.79 on FBA, making £1.09 profit as opposed to £0.17 selling not though FBA. I could have my figures all wrong of course but I factored in the cost of couriering the shipment to Amazon, printing the bar codes, printing the labels and paperwork, and Amazon fees (pick & pack + per weight). I also factored in a bubble envelope (though as I say I haven't worked out yet if that's needed). If I do take the plunge and try it, I'll let people know how I get on.

soolin

20thcenturycat wrote: »

Hi Soolin it's 30p per cubic foot per month, increasing to 40p in the winter (presumably because of Christmas?). Yup that's a hard one to factor in alright. But lets say you send 30 books in a shipment to FBA. That will come in at a couple of cubic feet I think... Lets say you add 30p to the fees for each book sold to cover this. I worked out that for a book bought for 33p that would normally be a penny book on Amazon, you could sell for £2.79 on FBA, making £1.09 profit as opposed to £0.17 selling not though FBA. I could have my figures all wrong of course but I factored in the cost of couriering the shipment to Amazon, printing the bar codes, printing the labels and paperwork, and Amazon fees (pick & pack + per weight). I also factored in a bubble envelope (though as I say I haven't worked out yet if that's needed). If I do take the plunge and try it, I'll let people know how I get on.

I would be interested in how you get on as I'm sure others will be as well. For me it is too late, I've gone back to casual sales and am down to around 1100 items in stock. Even when I had my full stock I don't think FBA would have worked for me as I had very slow moving stock, some of my items were listed for over 2 years.

Also be aware that anecdotally if you read the sellers board you will see some sellers are unhappy as Amazon often delay the shipping, and that reflects on the sellers feedback.

petestan

Don't know if this has been posted previously or not so I'll do it anyway a FBA calculator.
I suspect a lot will depend upon your stock, if it's quick selling items you won't be paying much in storage fees whereas if it isn't that will add up quickly and eat into your profits (if you have any).

https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/fbacalc/fba-calculator.html?ld=SCFBACalc&lang=en_GB

20thcenturycat

Petestan - thanks very much - interestingly this calculator is telling me FBA is more expensive and would actually make me a loss - mainly because the pick & pack charge is 2.30 in the calculator, but from my reading of the pricing pdf I thought pick & pack was 0.15. Hmmmm....
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/pricing/FBAPricingUK.pdf

mobile48

teapot2 wrote: »

[Also as a buyer the stickers are really sticky and annoying as they are hard to get off]

Being able to remove sticky label is vital to my selling - cash converter labels are terrible; a second hand shop I buy from use special impossible to remove stickers on bargain stock to prevent them being moved on their main stock. I was going to post my own tips but I think the following cover them (also use Google for better tips):

http://www.selfadhesivelabels.com/how-to-remove-stickers.html

P.S. If you buy new Region 1 DVDs on Amazon it is very easy to remove the stickers across top and bottom if you do it the right way and a real pain if you do it the wrong way. Just take some time to work out which direction to peel them off.

petestan

20thcenturycat wrote: »

Petestan - thanks very much - interestingly this calculator is telling me FBA is more expensive and would actually make me a loss - mainly because the pick & pack charge is 2.30 in the calculator, but from my reading of the pricing pdf I thought pick & pack was 0.15. Hmmmm....
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/pricing/FBAPricingUK.pdf

It does say it's in Beta so the calculator may not be correct yet.


Mobile48 and Teapot2 Have you tried sticky stuff remover for your labels, as a kleeneze agent I have customers who swear by it for removing all sorts although we have recently moved over to the generic liquid version rather than the Mycal liquid one and I am told it is nowhere near as good.
Probably more profit in it for kleeneze though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sticky+stuff+remover&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

teapot2

petestan wrote: »

Mobile48 and Teapot2 Have you tried sticky stuff remover for your labels, as a kleeneze agent I have customers who swear by it for removing all sorts although we have recently moved over to the generic liquid version rather than the Mycal liquid one and I am told it is nowhere near as good.
Probably more profit in it for kleeneze though.

Thanks, I think thats been mentioned on the Amazon board, also Lakeland do one I believe. I tend to use furniture polish which works really well most of the time but I bought a couple of older books on which the FBA label was too hard to remove cleanly. Had to add the damage into the description but still a decent profit in those particular ones.

20thcenturycat

teapot2, are you buying FBA books then selling them again? How can you manage a profit on that? <confused>

Crowqueen

mobile48 wrote: »

Being able to remove sticky label is vital to my selling - cash converter labels are terrible; a second hand shop I buy from use special impossible to remove stickers on bargain stock to prevent them being moved on their main stock. I was going to post my own tips but I think the following cover them (also use Google for better tips):

http://www.selfadhesivelabels.com/how-to-remove-stickers.html

P.S. If you buy new Region 1 DVDs on Amazon it is very easy to remove the stickers across top and bottom if you do it the right way and a real pain if you do it the wrong way. Just take some time to work out which direction to peel them off.

As a book collector I had a strong word to Oxfam about this. I have a lovely collection of Soviet books, and the latest ones I have had from Oxfam all have a Gift-Aid sticker on the back, which is impossible to remove without damaging the surface of the cover. They say they are trying to do something about it, so hopefully if enough people complain, then there will be a rethink. I don't mind it on a paperback, but it's sad to see it deface a book that is a masterpiece of the bookbinder's art in other ways as so many Eastern European volumes are.