Selling Your Stuff on Amazon Part 11 - Advice for newbies in first two posts

soolin

Just to add to the debate I do very poorly from charity shop buys, but then I have some very odd charity shops locally that think nothing of charging £3 for a modern novel that I can buy for 50p more brand new on the High Street!

I do buy at auction,but not so much anymore and have bought a small box from Samandtrina (dont think that name is qute right) who advertises on Amazon. However I do have another source of books that I would prefer not to state the source of. That really keeps me going although they tend to arrive all at once in their hundreds and for weeks I have big piles of them all round the house. At least 3/4s of them are not worth listing on Amazon but I do voluntary work for charities and run book fairs which gets rid of the best of those left and puts funds direct into the charity that hosts my stall. Even the dribs and drabs left go to another charity source as I cannot bear to just dump a book

It is chaotic as I have piles of incoming books, outgoing ones to book stalls and other piles for charity that collect them from me and some that go to the WI and other places. Heaven forbid someone should move a book to the wrong pile as them I am lost!

tsharp

I'm sending an item that's worth about £50 incl p&p, which is the best option at the post office to ensure i can get my money back once i've sent it should things go wrong?

A reciept for proof of postage won't cover me for that amount will it?
And what's the difference between a receipt that says 'retain for proof of postage' and an actual Certificate of Postage?

rare_stuff

tsharp wrote: »

I'm sending an item that's worth about £50 incl p&p, which is the best option at the post office to ensure i can get my money back once i've sent it should things go wrong?

A reciept for proof of postage won't cover me for that amount will it?
And what's the difference between a receipt that says 'retain for proof of postage' and an actual Certificate of Postage?

Special Delivery is the only RM service that will provide you with cover to that level, though depending on weight of order it may possobly be cheaper to send by couirier, especially if over 2kg.

the 'retain' bit on the receipt is only really valid if the clerk has taken the time to write the address details at the bottom in the space provided, most clerks will just cross this area unless asked and taking your own POP form in will save time and make friends behind the counter!

soolin

For items over £34 sent within the UK you must use either special delivery or standard parcels with any additional insurance purchased.

Any receipt from the Royal mail Post Office counters that carries the recipients address and a post office official stamp or a receipt from the PO till with recipients address, is sufficient for a claim for loss. I use a mix of certificate of postage forms that I fill in at home and get stamped at the PO, and till receipts that another of my local post office prefers and which they actually leave black for me to fill out the customer details when I get home!

Whilst I have thousands of these things at home (kept of course for tax urposes) I rarely lose much post and in fact I only had three claims in about the last 6 months.

soolin

Srry rare-Stuff, I should have mentioned courier as well. I tend not to use a courier due to problems with not being home all day as I work outside the home for a few hours but they can be a lot cheaper than the RM.

tsharp

Thanks all. I'll ask about special delivery when i go today to post it. Basically if i ask about the best way to make sure i get compensation for loss of item, they should sort it out for me.

I always get a reciept, and write the address on it myself, and keep it in case it goes awol.

wendym

teapot2 wrote: »

Also its possible to leave carefully worded feedback for a buyer which alerts other sellers to potential problems ie possible regular claimer of non delivery etc. This can be helpful to other sellers though I have to say I've not really had any probs so far in nearly 2 years.quote]

I've just had to refund on a (for me) highish value book - £10 - which the buyer claims not to have received. The problem with buyer feedback is that Amazon doesn't allow you to block buyers before they buy, and if you do it afterwards you risk negative feedback. Having just recovered from last year's idiot, I'm reluctant to pick fights.
And p&p isn't generous enough to use recorded. I wonder if we'll be expected to absorb this year's postal price increase, like the last one?

rare_stuff

wendym wrote: »

I've just had to refund on a (for me) highish value book - £10 - which the buyer claims not to have received. The problem with buyer feedback is that Amazon doesn't allow you to block buyers before they buy, and if you do it afterwards you risk negative feedback. Having just recovered from last year's idiot, I'm reluctant to pick fights.
And p&p isn't generous enough to use recorded. I wonder if we'll be expected to absorb this year's postal price increase, like the last one?

Although you can't block buyers on amazon if a buyer has been left feedback stating that 'refund given for non-delivery' a couple of times it may be worth forcing them into an a-z claim and calling amazon to ask them to investigate the buyer to see if they have a higher than usual refund rate.

As for Amazon putting up prices when RM put up theirs, don't hold your breath, amazon have never put up P&P and have only ever decreased it. They will expect sellers to adjust prices and hopefully this will raise some prices from a penny. Though in cases where the seller has a RM account on certain postage bands the actual price changes in april will see a reduction in costs for the account holder.

tsharp

I posted my item, using Special Delivery, which made it about £3 more expensive than the buyer paid for p&p, but my normal method would leave me exposed to losing out. The profit margin was good enough for this to be acceptable, so it was fine, plus I could tell the buyer when it was expected to be delivered.

Thanks all.

tsharp

I just sold a book on amazon for £1.50, amazon's fees are £1.41, plus 20p for VAT.
!!!!!!? If it wasn't for the postage credit, I'd make a loss!

Have I missed something, they've charged me £1.41 from a £1.50 sale!!!!