Selling your stuff on Amazon - Part 6- Advice for newbies in first post

mishkanorman

so do amazon have no plans to increase the postage allowance ??


My sales have been going slow and steady, just had a panic attack as thought that i had miss-priced and put a DVD on at £8 when the cheapest was £110 but silly me was looking at an american import !!

mishka

apprentice_tycoon

I doubt if they'll increase the allowance, it's been just the same for around 3 years now and there have been lots of postal price increases in that time.

Amazombie

seabiscuit wrote:

and i forgot to say - ive had long chats with my local post office and they are dreading the 21st

they said they already get many people complaining when the item weight is on the line so this will make their life harder

they are only a small local po, but always have a huge queue, their christmas rush is going to be madness - they are panicing already

To be honest all this hysteria is merely the fear of the unknown and once its been in operation a few weeks everyone will look back and laugh at what all the fuss was about.

There are only three categories: 1. Thin letters 2. Thicker letters and small packets which fit through the larger slot. 3. Any package which wont go through the slot.

Most items will be immediately obvious which category they fall in to and they will then be weighed and priced in the normal way. Its just the items which are on the borderline of whether they fit through the slot which will require measuring and that will take one second.

seabiscuit_2

Amazombie wrote:

To be honest all this hysteria is merely the fear of the unknown and once its been in operation a few weeks everyone will look back and laugh at what all the fuss was about.

There are only three categories: 1. Thin letters 2. Thicker letters and small packets which fit through the larger slot. 3. Any package which wont go through the slot.

Most items will be immediately obvious which category they fall in to and they will then be weighed and priced in the normal way. Its just the items which are on the borderline of whether they fit through the slot which will require measuring and that will take one second.

We had been testing their piece of equipment, and my standard envelope size will only fit through the postage slot if the sides are bent upwards - now i know this in advance of the changes

but other customers are going to stand in the post office bending and creasing their parcel until it fits, and those that dont will blame the ladies behind the counter

they say it is already standard to have arguements with customers who disagree with the weight shown on the scales, and they dont see any reason why the same type of customer isnt going to argue the toss over the size

soolin

I tend to agree with you seabiscuit. This is not clear cut like weight, I thought my CDs in a jiffy bag were fine, but my post office lady says no as they need to be slightly pushed to go through. If I was prepared to discuss this with her I'm sure others will too.

The fact that I often stand behind people who argue about weight rather leads me to assume that they will also argue about dimensions and whether something fits easily or not. Only a few weeks back I was in line behind a an older lady who refused to accept a price she was given for a small box to go overseas, she insisted she always sends similar boxes and they never cost more than £3 and now she needs to pay £11 and it is all wrong...In that case the post lady was desperately trying to explain it wasn't the size of the box that made the difference it was the wieght. That argument got really nasty with the woman storming off threatening to complain that she was being dealt with badly just because she was old and she was going to call her MP!

If people can argue about weight which is there in black and white on the digital scale, just think what fun we will have with thick cards and small packets where it fits through the slot but the post lady says it was 'helped' and doesn't qualify as a letter :eek:

apprentice_tycoon

I think that the real sticking point (pun intended) is that the letters must pass through the gauge easily so I assume that means no pushing and shoving. Since that's the case wouldn't it have been better if the slots were vertical so that you'd drop your letter through the slot into maybe a clear perspex box that the staff opened up on their side, it would be pretty obvious that it was stuck and needed a push and I think that it would be harder to push it if it's vertical than horizontal.

The tricky bit will be the packets that go in a postbox rather than over the counter, I assume that they'll be checked at the sorting office and if the sender had miscalculated with the cardboard gauge then the buyer will be charged...nightmare!

princessmoneysaver

Another sale, £2.32 after fees & postage. I think I've got less than 100 listed now as I haven't been relisting the unsold ones just yet, with just 13 days til baby due.

apprentice_tycoon

Yvonne, wouldn't it be an idea to re-list them and then put them on holiday setting for a month or two? that way at least you wont have to write them all out again....

princessmoneysaver

I've just saved the unsold emails then when I want to relist them I can click on each of these, I want to wait til the new prices come in too with Royal Mail as it may not be worth relisting some of them. Baby is due 14th Aug & new prices come in the week after so I will go through them all then.

apprentice_tycoon

Yvonne, the thing is after a couple of weeks the listings won't be there any more, the name of the book will be in your closed list but when you click on it it will have died.