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

petestan

Kite2010 wrote: »

Videos as in vhs tapes?

Is there a market, even charity shops have stopped taking them in and try to sell for 10p a tape.

Apart from vat changes, the postage credits have remained the same for years.

Yep I still sell them, Amazon and Ebay are the only places I know where you can still buy them, I don't sell a lot but I sell enough to make it worthwhile although Amazon do take a larger cut from video's so your price has to higher as from April the minimum to make a 1p profit has to be around £2.40 plus the £2.80 postage credit, more if selling internationally. I am currently repricing with a minimum of £3 ready for an expected massive increase again in 2014 from Royal Mail.

At one stage a lot of buyers used to buy them instead of dvd's by accident due to their search engine still showing video's even though the customer said they wanted a dvd but I haven't had that for a while so hopefully they have fixed the problem.

I suspect it's mainly films that aren't on dvd but i'm not sure, it is the less well known films and kids cartoons that sell best the blockbusters are all on dvd and rarely sell.

cleofish

hi wondering if anyone can help, ive just started to put some books up on amazon to sell.

i have listed a few books and they have gone live, i have gone back to edit some things,however i cant change the condition of the book, it lets me add a condition note but not the actual condition category for example used-very good.I go through- my inventory-actions-edit details-offer tab.

is there a way of doing this that im missing or would i need to end and restart the item to do this?

thanks in advance.

RFW

cleofish wrote: »

hi wondering if anyone can help, ive just started to put some books up on amazon to sell.

i have listed a few books and they have gone live, i have gone back to edit some things,however i cant change the condition of the book, it lets me add a condition note but not the actual condition category for example used-very good.I go through- my inventory-actions-edit details-offer tab.

is there a way of doing this that im missing or would i need to end and restart the item to do this?

thanks in advance.

You should be able to, but don't think I've ever tried. If it's just one it's probably simpler to just cancel and list again.

Irn-Bru-Kid

Once listed, you are unable to change the condition, only the description. You will need to close the listing and relist

Kite2010

With books, make sure you are actually going to make money on the sale of them once postage is taken into account

RFW

Kite2010 wrote: »

With books, make sure you are actually going to make money on the sale of them once postage is taken into account

That's pretty good advice when selling anything else too;). It's amazing how many people don't adhere to it.

soolin

Kite2010 wrote: »

With books, make sure you are actually going to make money on the sale of them once postage is taken into account

I agree with RFW. This is something that should be printed onto a postcard and attached to the PC of anyone considering selling books, especially on Amazon with fixed postage credits.

We would be rich on here if we had money for every time someone posted to ask how they get extra money for an Amazon sale as they listed at the price everybody else was selling it and have ended up paying more postage than they received in net proceeds.

It isn't quite as bad on ebay, but in the past couple of weeks I've been checking out a couple of crates of books I bought and there are still people selling paperback books thicker than a large letter with a 99p start and £1.50 p and p.

dawn1

and there are still people selling coffe table books , weighing more than 1kg for 1p + £2.80 postage :huh:

cleofish

Thanks for the replies, think I will have a look at the listings again, I was going to ask just how some people are pricing their books, when with postage costs they are running at a loss unless the book is thin, especially with the new postage prices and sizes.

I drew up just a rough table to work out before I listed with after fees and postage what would I bring back true profit I suppose and its scary how little it is, there is a lot of books that no way can I compete on price otherwise it makes a loss on my books and no way am I going to post on a loss, id rather put the books to better use and donate them somewhere.

Ive also posted books on green meterpolis and the fee structure is easier to understand but really if you price your books at standard rate you only have £3 left and postage needs to come off that as well, with books now I think £2.60! So I suppose its the increase in postage costs that dont really leave much at all!
Plus there is the wait to get any sales in the first place.

I think I might give it a go anyhow and see what happens, least I tried then!

bartelbe

I dislike Amazon, it is a lousey site for small sellers, for two main reasons. The first is the dreaded auto-repricer. Basically the cheapest price sells, and the big players know it. They have thousands of items listed, all priced automatically. If you try to undercut them, they instantly lower the price. Worse, you can often see values simply collapse if sellers keep repricing. They can afford to take the odd lose to drive other sellers out of the market.

The big advantage I have over the big sellers is the extra care I take over my listings. In ebay most big sellers have crap listings, no photo, general description for everything (for example, all books are listed as may have stamps, some tears, other damage). Whereas my listings are detailed, with lots of photos and very precise descriptions. This means I can often get a higher price for my listings, because buyers know exactly what they are getting.

With amazon I can't put in photos, have far less scope for making a better listing. So as a small seller I don't sell anything. I might list things on there, because it is free. But for everything amazon sale I make, I sell twenty on ebay.