A Tale from the Amazon Jungle

[acompton]

I’ve been selling the some of my shop’s products on Amazon for about 9 months. Trade has slowly increased and I’ve built up a set of 5/5 star feedback ratings.

Recently a customer awarded me a 3/5 rating; her gripe being that I had charged £3.95 postage and the stamps on the enveloped was for around £1.20 and I was ‘trying to squeeze a few extra quid’ out of the sale. I sent her a nice email pointing out that the postage charge is set by Amazon and not by the sellers, and is usually reflected in the price. She replied that she hadn’t known that and would bear it in mind in future. However the damage was done: my near-100% positive feedback status (the best on the block) was reduced to 88% (the worst on the block) by her so-called ‘neutral’ rating. It would take me a long time to recover the rating.

I was thinking of asking Amazon about the situation when I started browsing through the Amazon sellers’ forum. There was a post listing the only 3 reasons under which Amazon will remove bad feedback:
1. Use of profanity
2. Inclusion of personal details
3. Complaints about the postage charge

I e-mailed my complaint and they very quickly replied and removed the offending entry – restoring my seller status!

A happy ending.

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Alan,

Worth knowing about.

What is your opinion of selling on Amazon? Do you find it's worth it and would you recommend it to other forum members?

Mike

[acompton]

What is your opinion of selling on Amazon? Do you find it's worth it and would you recommend it to other forum members?

Its been discussed on the forum before (a similar question being posted by myself.

Negative:
1. The prices are very competitive - there are a lot of small operators who only sell on Amazon (no overheads at all other than stock) and they are often not VAT-registered.
2. Amazon take about 18%.
3. As shown by my tale, you are at the mercy of the customers - they can give you a bad rating for no real reason. Most people don't, but I have looked through other seller's ratings and seen some unfair comments.
4. You can only sell items listed by Amazon, unless you want to pay £30/month and become a Pro-Seller. This give you a tiny reduction in fees and the right to submit a data feed of your entire range.
5. Its fiddly to manage. You can buy special sofware but its expensive. I'm writing my own program to generate the invoice and packing list automatically.

Positive:
1. Customers on Amazon are not very good at shopping around for the best price. If you're the only seller listing an item, they will pay whatever you ask (within reason).
2. Because of Amazon's silly postage structure you can make money on an order if a customer buys two items (in a way, the original lady in my tale was right).
3. It's free advertising. Some people say they have found my shop by searching on Amazon (not sure how that works).
4. Once you build up a good reputation, orders arrive fairly regularly - there is a high level of trust from Amazon customers (see point 1)

Alan

[Mark H]

Any sign of the new back-end system/software we heard about, due for early 2007?

[acompton]

Any sign of the new back-end system/software we heard about, due for early 2007?

I haven't heard of this at all.

Alan

[Mark H]

Buspassjohn made the following comment in this thread:

http://community.actinic.com/showthr...ghlight=amazon


I would suggest you try Amazon Marketplace, lots of traffic, completely transparent competitor prices and no listing fees, just a commission on sale.
The software is a pile of poo but they are working on a new platform for new year.
__________________
Prezzies Plus Ltd - Gifts & Gadgets Since 1980
http://www.prezziesplus.co.uk
Tel:- 01473 272999

That's all I know!

[pnagames]

we have been considering to start selling our products on amazon (we do on ebay already) but the 18% commission put us off.

i think we will have to reconsider as we need to sell old stock faster that what we do now.

plus is extra marketing ....

[acompton]

but the 18% commission put us off.

I think its actually 17% plus a fixed fee per sale (less than £1).

Just remember that there are no credit card processing costs and no advertising costs.

I make very little money on Amazon sales, but regard it as a marketing tool.

Alan

[Dave Fisher]

I think it depends on a) what your selling b) how competitive your market is and c) what your average profit margin is.

Our industry is very competitive and our average GP 10% so its a none starter for us!

[compendia]

About how they find your shop from amazon -
When I'm on amazon or ebay and I find a seller that has a range of stuff I might like then when I see their name I open up another window and google for them.

Then I can see what they will sell me without having amazon suggest things at me all the time.

[acompton]

About how they find your shop from amazon

No, its more than that that. I was talking to a customer on the 'phone and she said she just went to Amazon (don't know which section) and searched for "board games" and got a list of shops - I was among them.

Now having a good, natural search result on "board games" is something I dream of, as its my most common search phrase on AdWords (unsurprisingly).

Alan

[Mike Hughes]

Amazon UK also show 'sponsored' links in their results and these come from Yahoo.

Were you advertising on Yahoo/Overture at the time?

Mike

[acompton]

Were you advertising on Yahoo/Overture at the time?

Yes, I was. I have since stopped as I couldn't get up to the minimum spend. I wasn't using the "board games" keyword though; too expensive.

Alan

[compendia]

Well they do have advertising at the bottom.

Which seems weird.

[acompton]

I haven't figured this one out.
It isn't just one customer, I've had several several answer the "How did you find our site?" question with "Amazon" (although they could be using your technique).

Nice Carrom boards BTW.

Alan