Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[BrickLegacy]

http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-continues-grow-lead-google-starting-point-online-shoppers/

[asharerin]

4 minutes ago, BrickLegacy said:

http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-continues-grow-lead-google-starting-point-online-shoppers/

Thanks for the read. It will be interesting to see if ebay can rebrand itself as a platform known for providing premium 1-2 day shipping. I have tried to use MCF for ebay but so far shoppers on ebay only care about price rather than customer service or shipping times. That is one huge advantage of Amazon over every other platform for sellers - it's Prime members care about shipping speed and customer service first, price is secondary or even further down the list. Bezos was smart to lock Prime members in with amazon photos, streaming video, and now Echo. I think once 3 hour delivery drops it is going to be walmart, target, best buy etc competing for the scraps.

[Robb]

Thanks for the read. It will be interesting to see if ebay can rebrand itself as a platform known for providing premium 1-2 day shipping. I have tried to use MCF for ebay but so far shoppers on ebay only care about price rather than customer service or shipping times. That is one huge advantage of Amazon over every other platform for sellers - it's Prime members care about shipping speed and customer service first, price is secondary or even further down the list. Bezos was smart to lock Prime members in with amazon photos, streaming video, and now Echo. I think once 3 hour delivery drops it is going to be walmart, target, best buy etc competing for the scraps.

I think I said months ago, it's a battle to be "the internet store". I think 3PS are essential to offer everything the internet sells, but they seem to be willing to risk that advantage.

The biggest important shift that hurt internet companies from growing was fighting against the price aggregators over 10 years ago. I never went to any one store then, I went to websites that scraped everyone's price and I shopped from there. The companies didn't like that those sites made it mostly a fight over the lowest price and they're right, so they legally took them down. The problem is now it's a fight over complete internet store package and Amazon is killing it when it comes to that. People now care "less" about price alone. If a quality aggregator that included everyone were to come back that would be awesome.

[BrickLegacy]

Thanks for the read. It will be interesting to see if ebay can rebrand itself as a platform known for providing premium 1-2 day shipping. I have tried to use MCF for ebay but so far shoppers on ebay only care about price rather than customer service or shipping times. That is one huge advantage of Amazon over every other platform for sellers - it's Prime members care about shipping speed and customer service first, price is secondary or even further down the list. Bezos was smart to lock Prime members in with amazon photos, streaming video, and now Echo. I think once 3 hour delivery drops it is going to be walmart, target, best buy etc competing for the scraps.

Amazon has created a brand built on great customer service, exceptional pricing, fast shipping, no hassle returns, and *no sales tax*.

The sales tax advantage is now gone but that helped them establish a customer base that is unmatched. But like everything in retail, all good things come to an end. I remember when Best Buy earned my loyalty with cheap CDs, sometimes half the price of the albums at the mall. I spent a lot of money at Best Buy on TVs, A/V equipment and video games all because they were the cheapest place to buy CDs way back when. Now I rarely buy anything from them, online or in store. So loyalty can be earned but it can also be lost.

There are sellers on AMZ seller forums claiming they are moving to eBay. Not sure if they are blowing smoke but the proliferation of fake sellers seem to be dampening the mood on AMZ. Apparently it's a real issue that is affecting prices. We'll see if eBay takes advantage of the situation.

[Phil B]

On 4/10/2017 at 11:01 AM, Phil B said:

Great point. I don't use this password anywhere else, but it might have at some point been my yahoo! password and since they had some hacks, this might be why. Time to get a random string of characters as my pwd.

Ok, so I changed my pwd, and it was quiet for exactly 2 days, and today I got another pin request. Long string of semi-random characters as my new pwd, not used anywhere else ever. How is this possible?

[Robb]

Ok, so I changed my pwd, and it was quiet for exactly 2 days, and today I got another pin request. Long string of semi-random characters as my new pwd, not used anywhere else ever. How is this possible?

Sounds to me like your computer is compromised. Key-logger or something

[Darth_Raichu]

16 minutes ago, Robb said:

I think I said months ago, it's a battle to be "the internet store". I think 3PS are essential to offer everything the internet sells, but they seem to be willing to risk that advantage.

Most likely they just do not understand the advantage

16 minutes ago, BrickLegacy said:

There are sellers on AMZ seller forums claiming they are moving to eBay. Not sure if they are blowing smoke but the proliferation of fake sellers seem to be dampening the mood on AMZ. Apparently it's a real issue that is affecting prices. We'll see if eBay takes advantage of the situation.

I can see some old eBay pros (that left ebay for Amzn) moving back to eBay, but long time FBM only sellers are not going to last long on eBay

[nolanfan34]

7 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

I can see some old eBay pros (that left ebay for Amzn) moving back to eBay, but long time FBM only sellers are not going to last long on eBay

What do you mean by the last part out of curiosity?

[Darth_Raichu]

5 minutes ago, nolanfan34 said:

What do you mean by the last part out of curiosity?

eBay is harder to get used to compared to FBM.

On the simplest level, with FBM you list your items by selecting ASIN, set price, set number of items, done.  With eBay, listing your items is much more involved process and you have limitation on number of listings.  

[nolanfan34]

12 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

eBay is harder to get used to compared to FBM.

On the simplest level, with FBM you list your items by selecting ASIN, set price, set number of items, done.  With eBay, listing your items is much more involved process and you have limitation on number of listings.  

Yeah, gotcha. I am small time and have shifted to more FBM the last couple of years just for that reason alone, was wondering if I was missing anything. I do still like to throw up a "see what happens" old school auction on occasion. :-) Which makes me realize I have been on eBay since 1998....yikes.

[Migration]

Ok, so I changed my pwd, and it was quiet for exactly 2 days, and today I got another pin request. Long string of semi-random characters as my new pwd, not used anywhere else ever. How is this possible?

If you use the phone app it's been know to trigger pin requests on occasion.

[Phil B]

5 minutes ago, Migration said:

If you use the phone app it's been know to trigger pin requests on occasion.

Ah! Thanks!

[BrickLegacy]

 

How Amazon is dismantling retail. 25 min:

 

[tdw]

For anyone printing labels this morning check the prices.  Signature confirmation is being added to all my shipping prices by default and if I select delivery confirmation the signature confirmation price $2.45 does not come off the shipping total.  It appears that many folks are reporting this as well....

 

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=346991&tstart=0

 

[I am Niko]

1 hour ago, tdw said:

For anyone printing labels this morning check the prices.  Signature confirmation is being added to all my shipping prices by default and if I select delivery confirmation the signature confirmation price $2.45 does not come off the shipping total.  It appears that many folks are reporting this as well....

 

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=346991&tstart=0

 

Just came here to make the same warning...was shocked when a normally $2.77 First Class Package was showing $5.22 and a 2 lb Priority Mail package was more expensive than FedEx by $2.

[jonnyhanukkah]

I thought I was crazy!!! haha 

I guess I am holding off on shipping a few packages until this is resolved... 

[I am Niko]

3 minutes ago, jonnyhanukkah said:

I thought I was crazy!!! haha 

I guess I am holding off on shipping a few packages until this is resolved... 

Me too, I was about to go on a price-changing frenzy on some cheap/small/low-margin stuff.  Of course, Amazon demands we ship quickly, but takes its sweet old time to fix a major issue.

Edited April 21, 2017 by I am Niko

[stoltzjl77]

I just had another fraudulent A-to-Z non-delivery claim this morning on a high-dollar item that tracking shows was delivered to the correct address, and I was thinking it might be time to add "signature confirmation" to my pricing calculations. I wonder if this is Amazon's way of trying to help reduce the number of fraudulent non-delivery claims? Of course they *would* try to force us to eat the cost one way or another...

[jonnyhanukkah]

I guess while we wait to figure out the Signature thing I have a question - 

I sold a new Lego set last night and I thought I had written out the condition of the set in the description (the box has a bit of shelf wear, a few marks, etc).  It turns out that never showed up in the listing so the buyer has no idea the box is not minty fresh.  

Any advice on how to proceed?  I guess my only course of action is to send them a message, right?

Am I correct in that you can't write out any descriptions for sets listed as New anymore?  When did that change?

[Kenxxx]

33 minutes ago, jonnyhanukkah said:

Am I correct in that you can't write out any descriptions for sets listed as New anymore?  When did that change?

Was supposed to have happened in March, but I think it was delayed until just recently.  Re: what to do... I'd contact the buyer right away. Tell him you just pulled the item from inventory and discovered the defect.  Offer to (A) cancel the order for full refund, or (B) accept the item "as is" (include photos in your email).  I had this happen with two buyers for two of the same item. One buyer was happy to accept, the other was happy to cancel. It will affect your "Pre-shipment cancellation" number, but if this is a rare occurrence, it shouldn't seriously affect you.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Kenxxx

[jonnyhanukkah]

26 minutes ago, Kenxxx said:

Was supposed to have happened in March, but I think it was delayed until just recently.  Re: what to do... I'd contact the buyer right away. Tell him you just pulled the item from inventory and discovered the defect.  Offer to (A) cancel the order for full refund, or (B) accept the item "as is" (include photos in your email).  I had this happen with two buyers for two of the same item. One buyer was happy to accept, the other was happy to cancel. It will affect your "Pre-shipment cancellation" number, but if this is a rare occurrence, it shouldn't seriously affect you.

This stinks in the long run but I guess most of my sets are pretty mint.  This just happened to be the roughest of the bunch I have up right now...

Also the buyer seems to be from overseas -  I am sending this to a box in Portland that I guess gets sent to China.  

for "collectible" sets it still lets me add the description. 

Edited April 21, 2017 by jonnyhanukkah

[micbelt]

So I had a fba shipment received in full on 4-5-17 and got an email today, almost 2 weeks later, saying that 11 units were not received. Have any of you had this happen and what did you do?

[I am Niko]

Looks like the USPS pricing issue is fixed.  Of course it starts working 2 minutes after I wait all day and finally resort to PayPal to create the labels.  That's Niko's luck for you.

[Kenxxx]

8 minutes ago, I am Niko said:

...Of course it starts working 2 minutes after I wait all day and finally resort to PayPal to create the labels....

Same story here.

[jerryherb]

So after thousands of shipments i finally ran into a blatant scammer on amazon. do we have a database of scammers for ebay/amazon and if not, why not start one? this is what happened (i will not mention any names for now, PM me if you want it).

Sold a Grand Emporium across the country (atlanta to portland). the first thing was an inquiry a few days into the shipment (where is my stuff). UPS tracking was very clear so i steered the buyer directly to UPS.com as it displays updates better than amazon. i did buy insurance/signature so no case of "i never got it" could be opened. the day of delivery no one home. package was then rerouted and delivered by the buyer. next day i get this with no further direct inquiries:

AZ claim: "Item not as described. Buyer Comments: The item I got is completely different than the item I ordered. This is not original item, the box is not genuine. I ask for a full refund."

i responded with a scanned receipt from the lego.com and insisted on the return of the item for refund. i also opened a separate case against the buyer to seek investigation into their scamming practices.

within hours of my separate fraud investigation case amazon transferred all emails under the the single AZ claim, closed it in favor of the buyer, but funded the refund of !!!$370!!! out their own pocket.

when i inquired why they would condone and encourage such behavior and how it will affect my metrics all i got was this:

"We have granted the claim for this order and issued a refund to the buyer. We have found no reason to believe that you are responsible for this claim. We have issued a refund to the buyer, but we will not debit your account for that refund."

Anyone else run into this? this is not FBA, i process all my shipments.

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by jerryherb