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Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

Hi I am getting ready to stealth ebay----I have never had an account on Amazon--is Amazon user friendly and worth having an account? I have heard amazon always beats your price when people search for an item--so please any tips would be great--

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

Pros and cons like anything else.
Amazon is tough but the right products can do very well for a least a little while. I always consider every SKU a short term option on amazon. If you compete with Amazon for the buy box, they make your cashflow tighter. If you annoy a competator they close your account.

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

Yes, it's a great market place. It's very different than eBay however, so take the time to research and learn it. Strategy on Amazon is different than eBay, as the customers are NOT price driven as the ones on eBay. Many eBay sellers make the mistake of running their new Amazon accounts like they did their eBay business and that doesn't really work. You need to maximize your profits on Amazon, keep your prices high, and turn your attention to customer service and speed of delivery/well packaging. Amazon customers are picky, they don't bother you or ask questions like on eBay, however, they need their stuff NOW and perfect. If you can deliver, you won't have much problems. If you start getting complaints, Amazon has no issue suspending your account and getting rid of you.

As far as user friendliness, it looks difficult at first, but once you learn the system, it's actually easier than eBay, since you can list your product against an already existing listing and it takes 10 seconds. Again, attention to detail and speed is very important, however, and be prepared to having to ship your products hours after receiving your orders, and answer emails/questions in terms of minutes rather than days. ;)

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

That's it exactly alekov!, there are a few more hoops to jump through if the items we want to list are not already listed on Amazon, because of course when the item is already on there we can simply click on the 'got one to sell' box which opens in our own page with the exact same item, we just insert the price we want to sell at and Amazon always encourages us to sell at a cheaper price. If the item is not already listed on there, then we can create a new listing by entering the codes that should be listed on the labels of the items, if we are lucky the site will recognise the item from the code and we can pick up the listing from that point. If the code numbers are not recognised there is a much more complicated option to buy barcodes, but that is not an area I have wanted to get into, so cannot offer an explanation of how it works.

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

alexkov, customers on all marketplaces are price driven, basically yankee if you not in the top 3 resellers you will have very little chance of selling an item and if you are a new seller with no feedback you have to be the cheapest or you won't sell anything. I say the Top 3 as if there is only a few cents difference in price most customers will opt for the customer with the highest feedback.

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

I know what you mean, however, if you look at the statistics of Amazon, you maybe surprised. For example, all FBA sellers have on average 30 to 40% higher profit margins than non FBA sellers. That of course doesn't directly translate into such big percentage difference in price, as usually even 10% increase in price may give you 40% higher profit margin, depending on products cost and etc. Now take that into an account, and look at the data showing that more than 50% of ALL SALES on Amazon go to FBA sellers, and there is a setting on the Buyer account that allows you to ONLY search products sold on Prime (by FBA sellers). So basically what that means is that about half of Amazon Buyers make the conscious decision to purchase all their items from Amazon at a higher price than what they can if they didn't check the box that shows them only Prime FBA Sellers. What the prime ensures is simple returns and immediate delivery. So more than half of Amazon buyers seem to choose that over cheaper price, and I am not talking about a cent or two here, I'm talking about substantially higher prices.

My personal experience supports the data as well. I have been selling for many years, and it's surprising to see how many times I am selling a product at up to 40-50% higher price than my competitors, when their offerings are visible. It's not even that I have the box, very often I do not have the box, as another seller has a substantially lower price than me. So imagine a Buyer going out of their way to consciously click past the box, to the right where there are other sellers, and choosing me as a seller, paying $20-$30 higher price for the product simply because of my faster shipping/better feedback.

There are numerous articles and books written on the subject, one of which is called Retail Arbitrage and has very interesting info in it, look it up. There are no short cuts with Amazon, if you are a new Seller, you won't make a ton of money until you are an older established account. So whether you undercut everyone else and price yourself to where you can hardly sustain your business or stick to profitable prices, you are looking at 6 months or more of growing/establishing period..

Re: Never posted to Amazon, Question
 

Selling on Amazon is a bit more tricky than eBay. From my experience it really depends on what you are selling. If you have items where you are in competition lots of other sellers its probably going to be rough. Personally the items I sell are more unique. For the most part I am the only one with them there are at times maybe one or two other sellers who are at similar price point and low supply. It has been a nice boost in sales. If you have your own products it can be strange because you may have to buy blank UPC codes off eBay in order to create your own listings.

The fee's on Amazon even with a Pro Merchant account are higher than eBay. They are very strict with their metrics. Very important to send items out quickly especially if you have Expedited shipping options. I agree you can command a somewhat higher price than on eBay. With Amazon you really have to go out of your way in regards to customer service compared to eBay. It is also nice that nobody is asking you lots of questions and trying to beat you up on price. Like anything you kind of just have to test it out and see what it right for you.