It’s hard to ignore Amazon these days, and I’m particularly impressed as I’ve been looking after another sellers business for a few days and the Amazon sales are just rolling in. It’s also a heck of a lot easier to ship items than on eBay (much fewer steps on the admin side) although I’m only too aware that listing on Amazon is a little more complex than on eBay.
If you want to learn more about selling on Amazon then there’s a webinar on Thursday at 7pm GMT hosted by Scot Wingo and Jennifer Artabane fo ChannelAdvisor. They aim to walk though live Amazon listings to demonstrate best practices for using search terms to drive traffic to your products, how to meet Amazon’s strict product image requirements, tips for creating effective product descriptions that result in more sales and product IDs and why they are crucial to your success on Amazon.
Disclosure: ChannelAdvisor advertise on TameBay
30 Responses
although I’m only too aware that listing on Amazon is a little more complex than on eBay.
…I normally agree with most you say, however on this I would have to disagree. We have a little over 4500 items on Amazon, the process can take as little as 30 minutes!
Spend an afternoon getting to grips with their inventory files and templates and you’re away.
Nothing anywhere near as complicated as all the item specifics, categories etc.
I would say Amazon is a great place to sell and as it only for business use so no wannabees so to speak – how ever I would NOT agree with Bigpoppa, its not a simple process at all and yes there are categories on amazon the same as ebay, anyone who thinks they can just send up a database will simply just fail and make no sales its not that easy which is the same as ebay in that way.
As the second biggest office & stationery supplier on ebay in the UK and we have been on ebay for 7 years and now been on amazon for about 18 months and slowly building up our product range.
The best advice I would give anyone is take your time get your listings full of information so the customer has all the info they need to make a infomed choice take your own photos on a plain white background a make sure you provide more detailed photos of products that need them for example we take 2 photos of a diary, 1 showing the product with the cover shut and 1 showing the diary open showing the layout of pages.
Dont use some database with a tiny amount of info and a stock photo.
Think as a customer would when you do listing.
Take your time get it right, dont be in a hurry to get thousands of listings and it will pay off.
We only have 3000 listings on ebay and half that amount on amazon but on ebay coz we have got our descriptions well written, clear bullet points where needed and clear photos showing detail where needed, we have made it to the no 2 slot and hope to get to no 1 in the next 12 to 18 months or so.
Customers come to us rather than other sellers due to the above and sometimes our products are at a higher price than other sellers but we get the sale.
Chris, with ever more eBay sellers embracing Amazon, will Tamebay be doing the same?
Tamebay has been fantastic for us in terms of eBay information and tips, and it would be great to get these from an Amazon perspective.
I have looked at amazon a few times but the fees they take are just too high. Any sign of them coming down?
Ebay/Paypal can take 13.3% + 20p per payment + a listing fee + a shop fee.
For 500 listings the shop fee and listing fee combined work out to 15p per listing per month.
So that is 13.3% + 35p per item if the item sells within 30 days.
Seller discount is problematic these days so if you get it treat it is a bonus.
When you look at the actual comparison there is not much to chose fee wise between eBay and Amazon.
If Amazon did the catogories I list in I would definitely go for it but they don’t so for the moment I am forced to stick with eBay. The website though is doing very well! 🙂
I tried to open an account with amazon, well i have opened one but the ‘cat’ i sell in is locked health & Beauty.
Can anyone tell me why please?
I also wondered how amazon compared to ebay with middle level shop prices my normal ebay bill is £680 – £730.
Not sure if that enough info i am top rated on ebay. All my sales are buy it now as i never do well on auction format
Thanks
Amfm
Some cat’s on Amazon are locked and you have to apply, if you contact support on there they can give you a number or email address of the UK person that deals with health and beauty.
I believe amazon will take 15% of your order value as commison but it is taken when the customer buys rather than afterwards.
The good thing with amazon is no charges unless you sell!
I have heard tho that sales in your section are not that good yet as it is a new section to amazon, but it’s worth a try I am sure.
Stu
Wonderful! Where do I sign up for the seminar?
I’m not available at the time of the seminar, is there a place to watch it later?
Since getting the ‘blue box’ on some items, I’ve seen my Amazon sales rise to the point where they’re better than or equal to Ebay and they literally do just roll in. Only started with them last November. As mentioned above, it takes an afternoon to get your head around their system. They are pretty helpful over the phone. Things I found the most difficult? Shipping policy -you can’t create individual rates like Ebay and I made a few costly mistakes there.
If you do it by the book, Amazon are supposed to use only one listing per product, so your expensive item image can be either irrelevant, become Amazon’s property or be easily hijacked by ‘me-too’ competition. (On the other hand you can do back it to them…) I’ve had my shots replaced by others a few times. On one occasion where a competitor used my listing to sell a cheaper product at half my price (I was wondering why sales had stopped on it) Customer Service immediately puta stop to it. Feedback leaving is very slow on Amazon and it isn’t always clear on a multi-seller product if the comments section relates to you or the others. You need the 13-digit barcode EAN numbers – so you’ll have to buy them in if your products don’t have them in order to list. Best points?
The buyers don’t hassle you like those on Ebay, you can take a little longer to deliver if you want without fear of
reprisal, (and if someone can explain why my Amazon INR rate is currently NIL to date I’d love to know). No endless tinkering and new rules or dimwit buyer threats. They pay fortnightly without fail. It’s now another reliable source of income that I wished I’d done years ago.
Anybody got any advice on staying on Amazon? We got 1 order defect and have been suspended, has this happened to any other Amazon sellers?
Agree though that Amazon is a marketplace that can’t be ignored and is great for add on business.
Different categories have different comission rates. In our category it is 28.5% (the highest)
The order defect issue is a hard one to get round in the early days this applies both to ebay and amazon as both of them work on % once you have got more stock which will result in more sales on both sites and more feedback it works out better.
With regards to my earlier comment (2) I dont want to scare people off but I have to say as a customer to start with online retailers should spend quality time on getting the descriptions written well and not use a database and use there own clear photos as its not like in a shop on the high street where you can pick the product up touch, feel and check it out.
As a customer I want to make sure its the product I am looking for.
From a internet retailers point of view it stops so many returns which cost money to any companies bottom line.
And from years on ebay those who just send up a large database in an hr are the sellers who are there to make a quick buck they dont care about the customer, the service they provide and going the extra mile for each and every customer.
And as a customer myself,if there is a fault with a product I want to know the seller will sort it out a little fuss, the guys who are there to make a quick buck just dont care and wont help there customers and they tend to be the ones who send large databases up to sites like Amazon – Play.com etc
What I dont want to see is Amazon flooded with poor sellers like ebay is, which is great that they have strict systems in place to stop any old Tom, Sarah or Harry setting up an account, and thats why you have to enter your VAT number in and company reg no which they check before you are able to sell on their site.
Amazon has a good reputation and it would be shame to see it ruined.
Hi
Im interested in selling on Amazon. They want me to put in a credit card for the fees, but unfortunatley I never have any money in my credit card. Will it be ok to sign upp and a few sales in and they can take money from my sales???
Please help if there is a way around it. Or maybe I can use a friends credit card?
Nihal
Hi,
I sell both on Amazon and eBay. Both are great platforms and both have good points and some not so good points.
The only problem I can see and have had with Amazon is their strict postage charges. They charge the buyer a set fee and then take commission of this fee. Now 9/10 this works in the sellers favour, but let us say you sell books you get around £2.50 to you for a book you sell.
Now if this is a paperback book it works in your favour, but if it is a large or heavy book, then you can loose out on the postage, and have to dip into your product profits to pay for postage.
Now having said that, I will say we should not be selling items with so low a profit margin to worry us. So as long as you know about the postage with Amazon just go for it, as others have said very easy to list on.
Have fun
Andrew