selling your stuff on Amazon - part 7 - advice for newbies in the first post

apprentice_tycoon

A lot of the 1p sellers are 'Pro Merchants' this means that they have 86p of the fees waived so they will receive £2.27 for the sale, so if the book is light AND thin it will post cheaply, maybe less than £1 so leaving a respectable profit.

Your seller lost out big time I'm afraid!

larmy16

I dont really understand it either. Most customers would not expect to get a book for a penny, so why not raise the prices and we would all make more, I mean if the lowest charge was £2.00 then they would make much more on the books??

Tirian

It's called a "loss leader", a tactic used much by supermarkets. People are attracted to your store by the low priced items, then when you have their attention they may well go on to buy some of your other stuff, on which you actually make money.

Hence Tescos will sell loads of Harry Potters at a loss, because they know they will more than re-coup it from all the other shopping those people will do when they come in to get the book.

Your penny sellers rely on a certain proportion of people who buy a penny book browsing through the rest of their items and picking up more stuff. As long as the profits from this outweigh the losses from the penny books, across all their customers, then they're in the money.

Of course, this only works if you can have a massive stock. As for letting everyone make more money - they're not interested in that, they just want people to buy from them rather than anyone else. They can afford smaller margins - even a certain proportion of losses, and that lets them sell cheaper than you, and therefore ensures people will buy from them instead of you. It's just business, I'm afraid!

apprentice_tycoon

Tirian wrote:

It's called a "loss leader", a tactic used much by supermarkets. People are attracted to your store by the low priced items, then when you have their attention they may well go on to buy some of your other stuff, on which you actually make money.

Hence Tescos will sell loads of Harry Potters at a loss, because they know they will more than re-coup it from all the other shopping those people will do when they come in to get the book.

Your penny sellers rely on a certain proportion of people who buy a penny book browsing through the rest of their items and picking up more stuff. As long as the profits from this outweigh the losses from the penny books, across all their customers, then they're in the money.

Of course, this only works if you can have a massive stock. As for letting everyone make more money - they're not interested in that, they just want people to buy from them rather than anyone else. They can afford smaller margins - even a certain proportion of losses, and that lets them sell cheaper than you, and therefore ensures people will buy from them instead of you. It's just business, I'm afraid!

In theory this will work but not in practice, in my experience...

I have been selling on Amazon for over 4 years now and the only multiple purchases I've had have been books that were subject-related (music tutor books etc) and neither of them were penny sales. The thing is the buyer is charged as if each sale is to a different seller so even if someone buys a dozen books off me they will be charged £2.75 p&p for each one - not that I'd keep all of that of course - so there really isn't much of an incentive for a buyer to look through my stock for another book after I've 'lured' them in with a penny book.
Because I'd make a refund on postage for a multiple purchase (if they were really cheap to post that is) I don't think that a multiple purchase is a welcome thing at all, I'd get more money if I sold 2 penny books to 2 people not one

jo_b_2

Kilty wrote:

Surely they'd be better just donating the book to a charity shop than making 5-10p "profit" on it, which is negligable after the cost of packaging, etc.

I tend to put my 'penny books' up for a swap on www.readitswapit.co.uk and get a new book to read as part of the bargain - more worthwhile than making a few pence on a sale, in my eyes.

I've also managed to sell a couple of penny books on www.greenmetropolis.com where the seller receives £3 for every paperback (and buyers pay £3.75 including delivery.)

earner

They do it to build their mailing list legally.
Once they've sold to you, they can then send out regular updates/promotions to you, hoping to sell you more things. They already know you buy books online and are happy to have them posted. So you are their target audience.
If they have a hot list of people they can send out regular communications to, this will build their business. So it is the repeat sales they are after.

motorguy

Tirian wrote:

It's called a "loss leader", a tactic used much by supermarkets. People are attracted to your store by the low priced items, then when you have their attention they may well go on to buy some of your other stuff, on which you actually make money.

Hence Tescos will sell loads of Harry Potters at a loss, because they know they will more than re-coup it from all the other shopping those people will do when they come in to get the book.

Your penny sellers rely on a certain proportion of people who buy a penny book browsing through the rest of their items and picking up more stuff. As long as the profits from this outweigh the losses from the penny books, across all their customers, then they're in the money.

Of course, this only works if you can have a massive stock. As for letting everyone make more money - they're not interested in that, they just want people to buy from them rather than anyone else. They can afford smaller margins - even a certain proportion of losses, and that lets them sell cheaper than you, and therefore ensures people will buy from them instead of you. It's just business, I'm afraid!

I dont think it is a 'loss leader', i think a lot of amazon sellers, and ebay sellers too work on waifer thin margins, and rely on selling lots to make it worthwhile..

phill79

They use the company franking machine/postage to get them out for no cost!!!

oldnick

If you can build a list of known buyers you can rent it out for a one time use at around £160 per thousand over and over again!

If you see one person with a few hundred books listed that is probably what they are doing.

funkyfunkymonkey

oldnick wrote:

If you can build a list of known buyers you can rent it out for a one time use at around £160 per thousand over and over again!

If you see one person with a few hundred books listed that is probably what they are doing.

If Amazon catch anyone doing this they will have their account terminated.

1.11.2 Unless otherwise authorised or consented, you agree not to use any information regarding other participants that is accessible from the Site, except to enter into and complete transactions conducted via the Site. You agree not to use any such information for purposes of solicitation, advertising, unsolicited e-mail or spamming, harassment, invasion of privacy or otherwise objectionable conduct.

You can view the whole 'Participation Agreement' here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3216781