Selling On Amazon

[Mister B]

Morning All

I would be grateful if anybody could offer some feedback on the pros and cons of trading on Amazon. I understand that the rate of commission is quite high but I am interested to know as to how much success people have had with it.

Thanks in advance.

Mister B

 

[kulture]

The commission is 15%. There is also a £25 a month fee. There are no other fees. Items tend to sell for more than we get on ebay, and it has proved so much better than ebay we have stopped using ebay.
Their feedback mechanism is terrible. You cannot get negative feedback removed. Buyer feedback is ignored. You only need a few stupid buyers who misread something to get significant negative feedback and it is tough climbing back out.

 

[glencooley.com]

Hi Mister B

Amazon offer alot of turnkey solutions for selling through them, like full catalogue data, images and a payment mechanism.

They offer a selection of things called Amazon Webservices.

PM me if you want some more details but essentially they will give you all the product data if you dont have it (or want to sell more than you physically stock) and payment mechanism....

Which I think is a big pro as it saves alot of leg work and development costs your end. That said its all about scale.

Thanks

Glen

 

[rippedoffbyamazon]

Hi well first off I would say don't sell on amazon unless you only have a few items and never get involved to a business level. I traded on Amazon.co.uk from 2001 until my store was closed by them in 2006 all listings removed and all outstanding funds were kept by amazon my account was supposedly linked to another account that was banned and any subsequent new accounts would also be closed. The important point here is that as far as I could see I did nothing wrong had 98% positive feedback and over 15,000 items listed which I had paid for and had in stock. The result of this ban was they kept and I never received a my takings of £751 I lost my home and was bankrupted by their action that was never explained to me, none of my family has a seller account as they were also closed down for being associated with another banned account. Look up (Amazon Sucks) in a search engine. I only started selling on amazon after I was made redundant and put a huge effort into selling items on line and was turning over in excess of £5,000 per month I had help from 2 people part time and they lost jobs and I lost everything.

Some sellers who have been closed down had 70,000 items and employed people full time but still they were closed down simply by being sent a standard e mail.

My advice is don't start selling on Amazon at all.

I would be pleased to hear from anyone else who has been closed down and funds kept e mail me

 

[kulture]

I am sorry to hear about your problems. Being closed down arbitarily is always a problem for both Amazon and Paypal. The only thing I can say is do not rely on them. Always have an alternative selling route, for example your own web site. Always promote your web site by putting flyers in every item you ship from an Amazon order. That way your web site business will grow in proportion to your Amazon business.
Do not exclude Amazon as a selling route BUT do not get locked in.

 

[gibby]

wow major problems

I agree its best not to rely on other sellers as if something goes wrong your in trouble

we had the opposite that we sold on ebay for ages - 100% +ve
then we bought from someone else on ebay who was offering at one price but when you bought the price changed

as we declined the sale our reputation was damaged and had massive problems and their system wouldn't let us sort it out, going round in circles for ages.

we like having our own site, in control of it 100%
but using other sellers helps as it drives traffic to you but dont rely on in

G

 

[SpeedyExpressCouriers]

Hi well first off I would say don't sell on amazon unless you only have a few items and never get involved to a business level. I traded on Amazon.co.uk from 2001 until my store was closed by them in 2006 all listings removed and all outstanding funds were kept by amazon my account was supposedly linked to another account that was banned and any subsequent new accounts would also be closed. The important point here is that as far as I could see I did nothing wrong had 98% positive feedback and over 15,000 items listed which I had paid for and had in stock. The result of this ban was they kept and I never received a my takings of £751 I lost my home and was bankrupted by their action that was never explained to me, none of my family has a seller account as they were also closed down for being associated with another banned account. Look up (Amazon Sucks) in a search engine. I only started selling on amazon after I was made redundant and put a huge effort into selling items on line and was turning over in excess of £5,000 per month I had help from 2 people part time and they lost jobs and I lost everything.

Some sellers who have been closed down had 70,000 items and employed people full time but still they were closed down simply by being sent a standard e mail.

My advice is don't start selling on Amazon at all.

I would be pleased to hear from anyone else who has been closed down and funds kept e mail me

I wouldn't take any notice of this user, everything he has said has been negative. The username explains it all.

 

[rss]

I can't really say much here as I don't run a 'business' on Amazon, but I've made a few hundred selling books and DVDs that I no longer wanted, but nothing spectacular.

Everything went smoothly and payments were made on time. It's a shame their commission is so high, but selling on Amazon is a lot less hassle than using eBay, which is why I use it- that and the fact that Amazon don't get a penny unless the item sells!

 

[Online Trader]

Hi.

We do well on Amazon, much better prices than on eBay.

We list about 30 products and sell at least 2/3 per day.

Hope this helps.

 

[quikshop]

A colleague of mine who runs Paragon Martial Arts is now trading on Amazon and so far its proved a good investment for his time in stocking his Amazon shop. Apart from their shop interface being awful, its as useful a sales channel as eBay and so far its paying off. That's not to say it will be a useful longer term investment but so far so good.

 

[mompessons]

Hi,

Firstly I am new to this forum, and came across it whilst looking for other selling platforms other than eBay. I was acutally looking for selling advise and maybe tutorials for selling on Amazon. Can any one point me to anything useful like this please?

Many thanks,

Marc.

 

[indiemandm]

I have sold some books on Amazon and it's been fine, make about 1 sale a week from an inventory of only 10 products. My advice would be research the price of your product first, I don't list anything at 1p only items that the seller pays over £5 for but ALWAYS check the amount you come out with vs postage costs, it's easy to make nothing or less. The products that have sold best for me are sheet music books, used in good condition. I price a little cheaper than other traders for the product/condition so buyers are more likely to pick my item. I'm not a trader on there just a private seller so sorry if this is not relevant to you.

 

[TheBalanceBikeShop]

Hi,

do you need a bar code to sell on amazon.co.uk?

I would love to sell my balance bikes (www.thebalancebikeshop.com) as ebay is so expensive so quality products gets lumped with cheaper ones.

After reading this link it has opened my eyes to this sales channel!

Nick

 

Yes you need a bar code to sell your product on Amazon, they can be purchased individually for about £15 each. If you have lots of models to sell, you need to register with GS1 UK which costs about £245 to get set up. This is my dilema at the moment, would go halfers with you! lol

Amazon has a much better search facility if you have unique products. On ebay you would be buried on page 250, on Amazon you could be on page 10. I have two products listed on Amazon and two on ebay as an experiment. Sales everyday on Amazon, one a week if I'm lucky on fleebay.

Both selling platforms have zero tolerance and couldn't care less about your difficulties.

 

[TotallySport]

Hi,

do you need a bar code to sell on amazon.co.uk?

I would love to sell my balance bikes (www.thebalancebikeshop.com) as ebay is so expensive so quality products gets lumped with cheaper ones.

After reading this link it has opened my eyes to this sales channel!

Nick

yes you do need barcodes

you need to contact GS1 its about £240+vat for the first year and £140 every year after.

Have you considered your product is so niche that there inlies the problem and not getting lost in ebay, although I don't people will be looking on ebay for your product.

 

[TheBalanceBikeShop]

Yes you need a bar code to sell your product on Amazon, they can be purchased individually for about £15 each. If you have lots of models to sell, you need to register with GS1 UK which costs about £245 to get set up. This is my dilema at the moment, would go halfers with you! lol

Amazon has a much better search facility if you have unique products. On ebay you would be buried on page 250, on Amazon you could be on page 10. I have two products listed on Amazon and two on ebay as an experiment. Sales everyday on Amazon, one a week if I'm lucky on fleebay.

Both selling platforms have zero tolerance and couldn't care less about your difficulties.

Thanks for the info - how do I get an individual barcode? I thought this was not an option and had to pay £240? Thanks nick

 

[TotallySport]

Thanks for the info - how do I get an individual barcode? I thought this was not an option and had to pay £240? Thanks nick

if you contact GS1 they will be able to give the name of the very few companies allowed to resell barcodes.

 

[TheBalanceBikeShop]

Thanks - That fantastic. Amazon here we come

 

[BensonYan]

it has a great market all over the world, so it must be not cheap

 

Thanks for the info - how do I get an individual barcode? I thought this was not an option and had to pay £240? Thanks nick

I used this company:
http://ezupc.com/

They will also supply the graphic if you need to print your code onto an avery label.

 

or this company:
http://www.barcodestalk.com/bar-code-numbers

 

[ctoumi]

Amazon sell items at cost price + they offer free delivery?
How can they manage to do that and remain profitable?
Well they do at the expense of the resellers.

Here is a brief explanation:

Scenario 1: Item available by Amazon AND by other sellers:
Amazon sells it at cost price so as to force resellers to sell at cost AND they will make their money (ie. fees/Commission, and that is min 15%).

Scenario 2: Item available by Amazon AND NOT by other sellers:
in this situation they ll just price it as high as possible, no need to force price down, as there wont be any resellers comission/fees.

Now what do you think is the long term effect of that will be (on the resellers that is)?
Soon any reseller in his/her right mind will eventually stop trading (slaving) on amazon, and when i mean stop, i mean forced out of business ! and Amazon will monopolise just as Tescopoly is planning to do by wiping out entire communities.

So my advice is, if you have a product to liquidate, it is ok, if you re thinking of a product available to all resellers as well as amazon, you better start rethinking your business model.

Of course that was a brief analysis, and mainly concerns new branded products with a unique manufacturer part number, such as eletronics etc.

A company which goes around looking for stocks to resell at cost price to end users by bypassing resellers has some serious intentions, and as far as i am aware, slavery was abolished - personally i will not send 100 parcels a day and make 1 or 2 quid gros profit per parcel while they ll cash in 3 or 5 quid on my hard work, and i personally know people who are doing exactly that.

 

[catsandcanines]

I'm glad I found this thread as I was thinking of selling on amazon. I have my own website and have only listed on ebay very recently and was considering amazon but have read alot of negative feedback on them.

I've been finding that when I first started, smaller businesses, like mine, were getting higher rankings on google shopping etc but now they seem to be pushed down by the likes of amazon, ebay and now even argos and tescos for the same or similar products I sell on my website.

My train of thought was, if you can't beat them join them. I'll be giving ebay a try but will leave amazon alone for now.

 

[ctoumi]

My best advice is, as a first priority an own ecommerce site with google adword, with various links on ebay and amazon for exposure BUT it is very important to nurture your existings customers, as acquiring new customers costs on average 8 times more expensive.

Good luck

 

[justwondering]

I sold online with Amazon via my old business for around 5 years , they where great to be honest , i did have 1 ,30 day suspension because we had oversold on a product and could not supply so we had to refund around 25 customers , that fed back into there system and made are refund rate go up past there limit for are account , it was a big shame as it was Like December 24th are last day before we closed up for the hoildays and normally over the xmas / new year period the orders flood in......i was well miffed......but thats life...

I would recommend using Amazon as a selling tool , but generally speaking the cheapest price sells , as long as you are 1p cheaper , then your top of the pile , BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE , do not cut your own throat by selling items at a loss , just to make a sale , business rule NO.2 :- turn over vanity , profit is sanity.

Theres some good software out there to keep your stock automatically repricing up and downwards , lots of sellers use that kind of software , with out it , you will soon drop down the price rankings....its essential.

Anyway , I've just signed up today this is my first post , i hope it was useful .

 

[fastbuck]

I had about 20-30 items on amazon, but took it off and put it on ebay because of the postage cost issue.
The items i was selling had a mandatory £4+ postage charge, because of the category i was selling in, when it was only costing £2 ish to post.
Of course, i could reduce the actual price of the item to make the price + postage even out, but even then, the customer then sees a £7 item with a £4 postage, which i think puts them off.
At least on ebay i can set put the postage on to the price of the item , and offer free postage, which is what a lot of traders seem to be doing now.

FB

 

[justwondering]

one issue with amazon is indeed people moaning about postal costs which can lower your amazon feedback score , if it drops down by a certain percentage each month , you can find your account susspended, which can be beyond your control if you use there std pricing for postage , this can be changed , i think this ability came into affect a couple of years back....

the advantage of offering free postage on ebay , is that the customer cannot complain about the cost of shipping , some people complain because you charged 1.49 , but the stamps cost 79p , but they fail to factor in the cost of packaging , celllotape and the time it takes and costs to goto the post off , or have a paid collection service.......if there was a olympic sport for moaning , the british people would win gold every time...p.s yes i'm british and proud +++ i'm a world champion moaner and groaner.

 

[jamesp34]

We recently attempted to sell on Amazon and the take up has been very poor indeed. Our prices are competitive and we sell large volumes on eBay and our website, but just can't get the results from Amazon at all.

 

[justwondering]

looks like you sell ink , did you setup your own products on amazon ? or are you selling official replacement carts , if its the official products and your cheaper than everyone else your products should be flying out of the door.

 

[jamesp34]

We sell compatible cartridges only at the moment on Amazon and the take up has been very poor. I know other competitors are selling these products well and we are selling them for the same prices so it's not that we are too expesnive.

 

[justwondering]

hmmm , are you keeping your prices at the same price / penny cheaper , if your higher priced than the competetion , you will not sell , are you repricing your stock every hour to make sure you are not be out priced ?

 

[justwondering]

p.m me a link to your amazon inventory i'll take a look if you like.

 

[kulture]

The secret to selling on Amazon is the blue Buy Now box. If you get that then you get the sales. If you do not get that then the sales trickle.

 

[jamesp34]

Where is this box positioned on the site and do you know how items are selected to be in here? Are they the most popular items?

 

[louisex1]

I sell on Amazon and ebay and have my own website.
It really does depend on what you are selling as to where is the best place to list your items. Check where similar items are selling the best, work out your costings incl commissions to see if you can match the best selling products prices and lastly where would you go if you were the customer to buy your item?
Dont forget to factor in costs of buying barcodes if your item is not already listed on Amazon.

 

[loganmcqueen]

I have set up on amazon about a week ago and have only sold 3 items so far.

"The secret to selling on Amazon is the blue Buy Now box"

On my new listings i have made, the blue box does not say buy it now but rather see all buying options.


How can i remedy this to say buy it now because every other listing i see says buy it now accept mine.

 

[kulture]

Look at http://feedvisor.com/blog/2011/04/winning-the-buy-box-on-amazon-com/
It is talking about Amazon.com but the UK amazon is similar.

 

[loganmcqueen]

Thank you Kulture. I will get in touch with seller support and try and see about featured seller hopefully my history on ebay will help.

Also i have listed some boots in the shoes department and it was no problem adding the variation for sizes but when i tried to list some gloves in the diy and tools section i wasnt able to give the size variations is there a way round this? or do you have to do a separate listing for each size.

Before anyone says put them in the clothing section i have been told by the seller support team that they are to be listed in workwear and safety as they are work gloves.

 

[danny156]

Thank you Kulture. I will get in touch with seller support and try and see about featured seller hopefully my history on ebay will help.

Also i have listed some boots in the shoes department and it was no problem adding the variation for sizes but when i tried to list some gloves in the diy and tools section i wasnt able to give the size variations is there a way round this? or do you have to do a separate listing for each size.

Before anyone says put them in the clothing section i have been told by the seller support team that they are to be listed in workwear and safety as they are work gloves.

You can do variations in any category

How are you listing your items - through Amazon or flat file ??

 

[loganmcqueen]

doing it through amazon so far.

When i listed in shoes it was straightforward but in the diy section the same option was not there.

Not sure what flat file is?