Anyone ever sold stuff on Amazon?

[noiseredux]

Just curious what the experience was like? I've always sold stuff on private forums, but recently did sell something on ebay for the first time. Because I'm a new seller, I'm still waiting on the paypal $ to stop "pending" (they hold it for 21 days until you're more established apparently). Anyway, that's neither here nor there - for those of you who sell on ebay and amazon, curious your thoughts on one vs the other?

[Ikariniku]

I've sold on forums, Ebay, and Amazon (and a few other places, as well).  I'm not a full-time online merchant, however, just a hobbyist selling off or flipping stuff that catches my interest.  I haven;t sold through Amazon and ebay in a while, but I have no expectation that things have changed greatly.

Let me say this up front: Selling on forums with a reliable feedback system is always the best experience.  Selling/trading to other hobbyists, even if haggling gets intense or even if deals fall through, has always been an better experience than selling on online marketplaces.

Amazon is very demanding to sell on.  It comes from a good place, I suppose, Amazon wants buyers to have a good experience, but it results in sellers being harried every step of the sales process by Amazon.  Once an item sells, Amazon immediately hounds you to ship it.  Merely marking it as shipped satisfies this demand, but if you don't check your sales dashboard every day, it's easy to miss a sale and have Amazon demerit your "seller health" or whatever they call it, a rating of how good you are as a seller.

Even if you're on top of your sales, Amazon is still unattractive because it takes a very large bite out of your sales, 15% with no limit.  They don't charge payment processing fees, but that doesn't close the gap with Ebay.  I never felt I was getting my money's worth out of that fee.  While my best items would sell, middle of the road items still had a tendency to languish unsold for months and months, despite the huge reach and millions of transactions Amazon boasts.

I've always found it much easier and more profitable to sell on Ebay if you must use an online market place.  The fees aren't bad, and, in my experience, it's easier to get eyes on your item and get it sold.  I've sold more on Ebay than anywhere else, forums included.  It's the best place to sell in a hurry.

Now, as I said, it's been a while since I sold anything on Ebay, and I hear they've gotten a little more like Amazon in terms of seller-harrying, but, unlike Amazon, you'll probably sell enough to make it worth it.

Hope any of this helps.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

...just don't sell anything on Amazon for less than $2, or you'll have to pay Amazon for the transaction. Not kidding.

[noiseredux]

thanks for feedback - definitely very helpful.

[shaggy]

...just don't sell anything on Amazon for less than $2, or you'll have to pay Amazon for the transaction. Not kidding.

You're serious, aren't you?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Yes. I recently sold some books for $0.99 because I didn't want to throw them out, and I had to pay Amazon something like $1.30 for the transactions.

[shaggy]

Yes. I recently sold some books for $0.99 because I didn't want to throw them out, and I had to pay Amazon something like $1.30 for the transactions.

That is just ludicrous.

[Ikariniku]

Yes. I recently sold some books for $0.99 because I didn't want to throw them out, and I had to pay Amazon something like $1.30 for the transactions.

That is just ludicrous.

The way Amazon pays out your sales is certainly ludicrous.

[techwizard]

i've never used amazon because they always seemed to be difficult to deal with when you're in canada. i think at one point they didn't ship to canada at all, and that forever turned me off of them. if they do ship to canada now, the lack of images of the actual item being sold keeps me away. ebay is just better all around.

[blcklblskt]

I've sold several hundred items on Amazon.  I generally use them for the higher priced items, but I've sold cheaper things as well.  I've found the buyers to be less of a hassle, and haven't received any negative feedback yet.  I think I only have 30 or so feedback despite hundreds of transactions as Amazon buyers leave far less feedback than on ebay.  It's definitely much harder to build your reputation on Amazon, and it can be burned down far more quickly.

I like Amazon's listing/selling process better as I find it goes much more quickly than ebay. I can list an item with a description in less than a minute, which compares very favorably to ebay's massive pages and slow loading times.

Some negatives exist, such as the ludicrous fees, but I find it a much more enjoyable experience.  I don't have to wait for an auction to end as I can set a listing up in less than a minute and forget about it until I get a text/email about it when it sells. Also, Amazon will display the exact fees when you list the item, including the amount you will net from the transaction (minus the actual cost it takes for you to ship the item).  For me, this is much more preferable than hoping for an ebay auction to hit a certain price, then waiting to view ebay's invoice as for how much of a hit you took in fees.

There are still scammers as well, but sending them an email about how you're contacting federal authorities on their behalf about a potential instance of mail fraud being committed in order to "help them" usually scares them away and prevents them from filing a false unreceived item request.  It's also much easier for people to return items through Amazon with no hit on their end, and if you don't comply your ratings will be decimated.

Overall, Amazon has much more strict and unbending policies for sellers.  Essentially, if you don't do what the buyer wants, you WILL get dinged badly.  Ebay seems to have shifted in recent years to being more on the neutral side.

The biggest benefit of Amazon is setting your price and not having to relist it every 7 days.  I often find the transaction prices are higher on Amazon as well, which does help to ease some of the listing fee pain.

I usually use ebay as a way to list bundles of stuff or things that I want to dump immediately.  Amazon items can tend to sit for longer, but when it sells, you get the price you want. If you're willing to take an even bigger hit, you can send your stuff to be fulfilled by Amazon, but you open yourself up for more damage to an item because it is getting handled even more than it should be.  I once had someone return a Batman: Arkham City CE that I had fulfilled by Amazon. Not only did I have to eat the return shipping, Amazon damaged it when they received it so I couldn't even have them relist it.  Needless to say, it turned me off of the FBA process for individual items.

There are positives and negatives to both, but I prefer the overall simplicity and less stress-inducing environment of Amazon despite the heavy fees.