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

wendym

soolin wrote: »

My sales fell off a cliff last November and that's why I gave up my pro membership. I do still make about 10-15 sales a month and the no feedback makes me look as though I sell nothing at all

I'm currently on about 2 sales a week, and zero feedback for a couple of months. I've just taken another couple of full boxes to our Oxfam books only shop.

soolin

wendym wrote: »

I'm currently on about 2 sales a week, and zero feedback for a couple of months. I've just taken another couple of full boxes to our Oxfam books only shop.

I've disposed of about 800 books so far and am now down to around 900-1000 listed, I will dispose of most of the rest as soon as I can as I need the room for more profitable stock. It was so odd, one minute I was selling and the next minute it just stopped.

wendym

soolin wrote: »

I've disposed of about 800 books so far and am now down to around 900-1000 listed, I will dispose of most of the rest as soon as I can as I need the room for more profitable stock. It was so odd, one minute I was selling and the next minute it just stopped.

I've never been at your level of sales or listings, but just like you I went from selling to not selling, with nothing in between. Really odd.

soolin

wendym wrote: »

I've never been at your level of sales or listings, but just like you I went from selling to not selling, with nothing in between. Really odd.

I don't think it was just us either, I was contacted by two local dealers who had also given up and wanted me to buy their stock, when I spoke to them they said the couldn't sell a thing.

Kite2010

I had an email this morning from someone whom purchased an item from me 3 and a bit weeks ago saying that the item hadn't arrived. Naturally I assumed it had got lost in the post, so sent an email back "sorry, the item must have got lost in the post as it got posted on the 24th March, I will get a refund from the royal mail for a lost item" and actioned a refund.

The next thing I knew I had another email from the buyer saying "my apologies i sent the message to the wrong person very sorry" by which time the email from amazon to confirm the refund had already came though.

I guess there is no hope in trying to reclaim the £5 accidentally refunded?

petestan

Kite2010 wrote: »

I had an email this morning from someone whom purchased an item from me 3 and a bit weeks ago saying that the item hadn't arrived. Naturally I assumed it had got lost in the post, so sent an email back "sorry, the item must have got lost in the post as it got posted on the 24th March, I will get a refund from the royal mail for a lost item" and actioned a refund.

The next thing I knew I had another email from the buyer saying "my apologies i sent the message to the wrong person very sorry" by which time the email from amazon to confirm the refund had already came though.

I guess there is no hope in trying to reclaim the £5 accidentally refunded?

You could message the buyer explaining that you have already given them a full refund, get them to check you have and ask them if they would kindly rebuy the book so that you don't lose out and relist it, then mark it as sent but obviously don't send anything. Most buyers are honest people and will do so.

financial_crisis

Hi,

I have just made my way through the large niumber of posts on this and similar MSE threads,all of which have been very interestring and informative.

The time and trouble taken by so many to help beginners and others is impressive.

I'm going to write my own manual for selling books (mostly my own).

Special thanks to Soolin,who seems to b going through a rough patch, but still finds the time to post "the odd" thing (36000 and climbing !!!!!).

And to the original poster, Apprentice Tycoon.

FC

soolin

Thank you Financial Crisis

If you are looking to sell 'real' books though I would express caution before committing too much time ad money to building up stock. Only this week in the news Amazon said that e books now outsell real books. I fear that will get worse as ebooks become more and more popular.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/19/amazon-waterstones-ebook-sales

I went to an auction last week where I used to buy a lot of my book stocks and I bought three large tea chests for £3 as there were two books I wanted for my sons uni course. Out of the 3 chests I kept two books, listed 4 and the rest went to Oxfam. The 100+ books remaining were not worth listing.

I fear the market is dying and not just for me.

petestan

Whilst I do agree partially with you Soolin the vast majority of back catalogue books will never be converted to ebooks, it's mainly going to be new ones and the most popular older ones (probably mostly the well known and bought novels) so there will always be a market for some books but I suspect it will gradually diminish over the years.
Don't believe all that amazon says though read the article on the link below, that is one of a number I have seen questioning amazon's press releases and that is what they actually are they do not give any actual figures anywhere it's just their PR and it is working as loads of newspapers and websites suddenly start quoting this stuff.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385683,00.asp

soolin

I am a huge reader buying several books a week on average. I knew the book market was doomed when even I bought a kindle at Christmas. I now buy whatever format is cheapest but that still means my purchases of real books has halved.

Until Autumn 2010 I was a pro seller turning over books at a fair rate. Then my sales completely died over night, I was still listing books at my usual rate and taking off th eolder ones but within a few weeks was selling around 2/3rds less than I had been, by November I could no longer sell enough to cover my pro membership and that's when I reluctantly gave up. I am now gradually dumping my old stock but still adding a few books every week if I come across them, and with a stock now of around 800 books am selling around 7 a month.

It is a shame to see the high street book stored going, we lost our local Sussex stationers and the local borders and are now down to just a single Waterstones.