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

becky004

kevtrader wrote:

I going to be selling over 100 items possibly over 200 and I'm wondering if I should sign for the Pro-Merchant subscription as it does seem to be a timesaver?
Thanks

Am only just getting back on track with my books, the first 2 months I had the subscription it paid for itself (as I sold over 33 items each month) next 3 months it didn't pay as my sales were low, and now I've started working at it again last month paid for itself. So if you think you're going to be selling over 33 items a month I'd say it's worth it. Good luck

apprentice_tycoon

kevtrader wrote:

I going to be selling over 100 items possibly over 200 and I'm wondering if I should sign for the Pro-Merchant subscription as it does seem to be a timesaver?

Thanks

Hi Kev, it's good news that you're building up your list.

You have to sell 33+ items per month for it to be cost effective and maybe 100 is too few, 200 listings sounds much more like you'll cover the cost.

Last autumn Amazon had an offer on half price Pro subscription for your first 3 months (it started on the 12th October, I went pro on the 11th october :mad: ) so I don't know if it would be worth waiting till then just in case they do the same again? they may or on the other hand they may not so it's a gamble.

Jazzy_B

snax wrote:

[I calibrate using 2x£1 coins which weigh 9.5g each so x2 will be 19grammes ... also useful for a sneaky weigh test now and then on the digital scales in the PO to make sure they are true!!]

.
What a brilliant idea. I've been thinking of buying some.When I mentioned this to my OH , he checked the weight of £1 coins on his super duper £400 digital scales, that go to 6 decimal places. Although they all (6) weighed different weights, 9.5 g was a good average. The things you find out here.

funkyfunkymonkey

becky004 wrote:

Anyone having problems with Amazon site today. Have a weird one, had 2 "the sale of your item has ended" mails last night, both apparently sold at exactly same time (down to the last second 21:20:06!). However have not had any SDN emails. There is no money showing on my account for them and there is no record of the sales anywhere on the account, although they are showing up as closed listings. Has happened before with the odd SDN coming a couple of hours after initial mail, but never this long and not 2 items.

Hi Becky

I had this one:

Pending Buyer Payment 11.09.2006 19:57:51
Processing Payment 11.09.2006 19:57:51
Completed 12.09.2006 10:21:37

and others today have been taking a couple of hours to finalise - so seems that something is 'up'.

FFM

becky004

Now over 20 hrs and still no SDN! Is a pain as I advertise that I will post next day but have been unable to

katchambers

Originally Posted by Annie021063
Hi Kat and all
I thought I would post my progress for you all to see how much of an affect your advice can make.
This last month I have sold 172 books/cd's/DVD's which averages at 44 per week. I now have approx 1400 listed and more in the garage to list. I find most of mine at either car boots or ebay and the odd one from a charity shop. This has changed my life; I am slowly but surely paying off my debts. I also now have an ebay shop which I have sold over £150.00 worth of stuff on in the last couple of weeks. I love this site and what it's doing for me and can't thank all of you enough for your help and support - long may it continue.

Annie - Glad we all helped you and congrats on paying off lots of your debts - that is fantastic news - keep up the good work - that is a phenomenal amount that you are selling, well done!


My sales have been particularly good this week and it is thrilling! I have sold a whopping 25 in 7 days which is a record for me and I am very happy, long may it continue because we have massive debts and we could really use the money.

I have a question, this week I lost a book and had soooo much trouble finding it, until I read the post about listing ids and finding the books around it, that really works -so thanks for that. Anyway I decided, because I spent 2 days looking for that book that I should have a system in place, so I am labelling my shelf with a number and will enter that in the SKU, my plan is to do this:

Study = S
Guest room = GR
Garage = G

The shelves will be numbered by individual shelf unit and by shelf number starting from the top and going down, then each book will have a unique number because each sku has to be unique, so if I had a book in the study on shelving unit 2 and on the third shelf down and unique book number 14 it would look like this:
S020314

So that is my big plan, the problem that I have, and I would be grateful if someone could help, is I have just gone in to one of my old listings to edit it and give it an sku and the sku box isn't there! It appears I can only add sku's to new listings, which would mean me closing all my listings down, all 600 of them and then redoing them and adding sku's - that is soooo not going to happen! Please help!

Kat x

apprentice_tycoon

katchambers wrote:

I have a question, this week I lost a book and had soooo much trouble finding it, until I read the post about listing ids and finding the books around it, that really works -so thanks for that. Anyway I decided, because I spent 2 days looking for that book that I should have a system in place, so I am labelling my shelf with a number and will enter that in the SKU, my plan is to do this:

Study = S
Guest room = GR
Garage = G

The shelves will be numbered by individual shelf unit and by shelf number starting from the top and going down, then each book will have a unique number because each sku has to be unique, so if I had a book in the study on shelving unit 2 and on the third shelf down and unique book number 14 it would look like this:
S020314

So that is my big plan, the problem that I have, and I would be grateful if someone could help, is I have just gone in to one of my old listings to edit it and give it an sku and the sku box isn't there! It appears I can only add sku's to new listings, which would mean me closing all my listings down, all 600 of them and then redoing them and adding sku's - that is soooo not going to happen! Please help!

Kat x

Hi Kat, you've had great sales too!

The SKU or another home made code system is great, but for old listings I've found the best method is to photograph the spines (digital camera) and refer to the photos before I go physically looking for the book, it saves on lots of futile searching

funkyfunkymonkey

katchambers wrote:

I would be grateful if someone could help, is I have just gone in to one of my old listings to edit it and give it an sku and the sku box isn't there! It appears I can only add sku's to new listings, which would mean me closing all my listings down, all 600 of them and then redoing them and adding sku's - that is soooo not going to happen! Please help!

Kat x

There are 2 ways you could do this, the quick (but simple) way which would be a bit of a 'cheat' would be to add your sku to the end of the 'description'.

The 2nd more tricky way would be to download an open listings report (I assume you are a PM), delete all of your open listings, add your new sku's to the downloaded excel spreadsheet and then upload your new file.

The 2nd way is safe if you make sure you save a copy of the downloaded file that you can 'fall back on in the event of a 'mishap'. It is a long time since I did this - let me know if you want to know how to do it and I will figure out some instructions.

FFM

katchambers

Thanks FFM & AT
I think I will just add it to the end of my description, seems like the easiest way.

Thanks

Kat

makintracks

This thread caught my attention as I have always wondered why it seems that "professional book sellers / shops" seem to sell on Amazon and are quite happy to keep undercutting however low you set your price? As an "amateur seller" who only wants to sell a few of my own second hand books and also some new ones that have never been read / used, I can not understand the dynamics of Amazon. Is there a reasonable explanation for all this?

I am so puzzled by the bookshops on Amazon that I assume there must be a great free resource where anybody can obtain books from to sell on Amazon :rolleyes:

I have in the past try to price below everybody else (apart from sellers in the USA) to get a quick sale, but this does not seem to work as you can guarantee a shop will undercut you within minutes. I will definitely try the advice given in the first post about matching the lowest price rather than undercutting in future.