Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[asharerin]

On 4/24/2017 at 8:09 PM, supergman said:

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere, but I am a long-time collector and generally donate my endless sets to local charities and schools.  I have a lot here and will sell some stuff on ebay, and have only sold a few things under my personal account on Amazon; no issues with the latter, but the last was early 2016.  In going to try listing things on Amazon, I see an application whereby I must show a receipt from a wholesaler indicating a per-product purchase of 10+ units for each, and a $2500 fee if approved.  Is this really the case for people, now????  Thanks!

It is $2500 Toy Building Blocks, and then another $1000 and invoices from Lego once you make it through Toy Building Blocks to get ungated for the Lego brand.

[supergman]

It is $2500 Toy Building Blocks, and then another $1000 and invoices from Lego once you make it through Toy Building Blocks to get ungated for the Lego brand.

Truly incredible how it's all changed. For the better in some regard, but it kills the small time folks. Back to eBay perhaps.

[Kenxxx]

10 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

this is a disturbing thread : https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=342324&start=0&tstart=0&sortBy=date   ...again , u never know the true back story, but a good reminder not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 

Most disturbing is that it appears everything in his store (mostly Lego) is sold FBA.  So you can get hit with counterfeit claims as an FBA seller.  More accurately, he says he never had a counterfeit claim, but that Amazon shut him down for infringement on intellectual property, or selling items that "may be inauthentic".  Sure would like to know what has happened since his first post about a month ago.

[Robb]

but a good reminder not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 

What other basket is there?

[cobrakai]

2 minutes ago, Robb said:

 

What other basket is there?

 

I started selling on Walmart in the fall and trying to sell toys above retail there has become challenging.  They have too many pricing rules and unpublish your listings if they are not competetive with other websites.

[Sfcommando14]

39 minutes ago, cobrakai said:

I started selling on Walmart in the fall and trying to sell toys above retail there has become challenging.  They have too many pricing rules and unpublish your listings if they are not competetive with other websites.

...unless you're ToyWiz, in which case you can be 3x other sites...

[jerryherb]

17 hours ago, exciter1 said:

I forget, when you buy a USPS label from Buy Shipping and never ship the item and issue a refund, is your money gone for the label cost?

nope. you have to request a refund for the shipping label. takes up to 3 months to get your money back for an unused shipping label.....

Edited April 26, 2017 by jerryherb

[exciter1]

5 minutes ago, jerryherb said:

nope. you have to request a refund for the shipping label. takes up to 3 months to get your money back for an unused shipping label.....

Do you request through Amazon or USPS?

[jerryherb]

2 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

Do you request through Amazon or USPS?

amazon, under the order details

[jerryherb]

15 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

this is a disturbing thread : https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=342324&start=0&tstart=0&sortBy=date

again , u never know the true back story, but a good reminder not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 

i wonder if this only pertains to sets CURRENTLY available on the market, not EOL. Why would amazon/brands care if youre selling collectible sets if you are no longer a competition to their bottom line? only two of the ASINs are LEGOs, but all items are DC licensed. both sets are very recent and still listed (OOS) on mainstream retailers' websites

Edited April 26, 2017 by jerryherb

[jerryherb]

figured this would be interesting to everyone selling FBM:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=347651&start=0&tstart=0&sortBy=helpful

[gregpj]

What other basket is there?

I'm guessing you're excluding the magic minifigure sorting basket.

[HappyHawkeye]

I'm guessing you're excluding the magic minifigure sorting basket.

The minifigure smooshing/sorting basket discussion was one for the ages. Every now and then I randomly think about it and smile

[Kenxxx]

Looks like the FBM / "must pay for signature confirmation"-bug has returned to the Amazon shipping platform. So great!?

[Kenxxx]

This is rich... just sold a 40124 Winter Fun... got the label printed up (no thanks to Amazon), entered tracking number manually on Amazon, put it in the mail box, come back to the house and I have a message from the buyer:

"Hello,
I received my purchase as ordered, however it seems to be missing several small pieces to several figures. Please let me know what can be done in order to resolve this issue. Thank you. Nxxxxx Pxxxxx"

Immediately went back to the mailbox, and retrieved the package.  What to do now? Of course, could be an honest mistake... just has me confused with another seller she bought the item from last week... but I think the smartest move would be to simply reply to her message with a brief apology for the inconvenience. Tell her I have already applied a 100% refund, and please keep whatever merchandise you received.  Right move?

[exciter1]

8 minutes ago, Kenxxx said:

This is rich... just sold a 40124 Winter Fun... got the label printed up (no thanks to Amazon), entered tracking number manually on Amazon, put it in the mail box, come back to the house and I have a message from the buyer:

"Hello,
I received my purchase as ordered, however it seems to be missing several small pieces to several figures. Please let me know what can be done in order to resolve this issue. Thank you. Nxxxxx Pxxxxx"

Immediately went back to the mailbox, and retrieved the package.  What to do now? Of course, could be an honest mistake... just has me confused with another seller she bought the item from last week... but I think the smartest move would be to simply reply to her message with a brief apology for the inconvenience. Tell her I have already applied a 100% refund, and please keep whatever merchandise you received.  Right move?

That would probably be a good thing to do, before it goes further to an A-Z or something crazy.

[Bold-Arrow]

It could be either an honest mistake or a a scam .. tell them you will be glad to assist them and  ask for the order number and take it from there . If it is yours it is a scam if not inform of the fact and move on . 

[Kenxxx]

45 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

It could be either an honest mistake or a a scam .. tell them you will be glad to assist them and  ask for the order number and take it from there . If it is yours it is a scam if not inform of the fact and move on . 

Yes, but... a sealed 40124... missing "...several small pieces to several figures" ?  That tells me already that this is a scammer.  She just got her scams mixed up.  If I tell her my item hasn't shipped yet, and she must be thinking of someone else, she's going to say, "Oh! My mistake... yes, please send me my order... your A-Z claim is here on my calendar for next week..." ?

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, Kenxxx said:

Yes, but... a sealed 40124... missing "...several small pieces to several figures" ?  That tells me already that this is a scammer.  She just got her scams mixed up.  If I tell her my item hasn't shipped yet, and she must be thinking of someone else, she's going to say, "Oh! My mistake... yes, please send me my order... your A-Z claim is here on my calendar for next week..." 

Right but if it ain't your order not much you can order nor worry about . 

[Darth_Raichu]

6 minutes ago, Kenxxx said:

Yes, but... a sealed 40124... missing "...several small pieces to several figures" ?  That tells me already that this is a scammer.  She just got her scams mixed up.  If I tell her my item hasn't shipped yet, and she must be thinking of someone else, she's going to say, "Oh! My mistake... yes, please send me my order... your A-Z claim is here on my calendar for next week..." 

Is it so bad already on Amazon that scammers would spend their time scamming $20-$25 set?

[exciter1]

27 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Is it so bad already on Amazon that scammers would spend their time scamming $20-$25 set?

I got scammed out of a Batmobile poly recently.

[Robb]

How do they monetize this scam?

I know sell the set is the easy answer. But I'm wondering if there is more to it, seeing as it has become so rampant. I wonder if they sell on Amazon?

[33Lego]

Got a seller message saying item not received. Even though the tracking said delivered. Shipping address name is different from buyer name.

Filing a Fedex claim now...

 

 

 

[cladner]

3 hours ago, Kenxxx said:

Yes, but... a sealed 40124... missing "...several small pieces to several figures" ?  That tells me already that this is a scammer.  She just got her scams mixed up.  If I tell her my item hasn't shipped yet, and she must be thinking of someone else, she's going to say, "Oh! My mistake... yes, please send me my order... your A-Z claim is here on my calendar for next week..." 

i would cancel it.  trust your instincts.  don't be afraid to cancel your order because your alarms are going off. F' amazon's metrics or what the chat person says - they are trying to reach their quota of chat's per hour.  they do not give a rat's ass about your business or bottom line.   and for a lot of sellers, losing a large set crushes the profit.  and the metric hit of an A-Z claim that you could sense versus any possible negative impact on your account health by cancelling a single sale is fairly one sided risk-benefit ratio.

i cancel up to  3 orders a month.  come up with a reason like can't deliver to address. there's 6 or 7 flavors to choose from that will stop you from getting dinged.  the reason doesn't have to make any sense.  you think amazon is going to stop and check the reason on a $300 lego sale cancellation?  the scammer isn't going to stop and act all pissed because you cancelled it - they just move on down the seller list.

i also do this every time i get order from virgin islands or guam.  i also do this for PO box deliveries - cancel. last 2 times i was scammed it was PO deliveries.   my metrics are fine , sales are 10% better than last year and by cancelling the orders where the buyer and the shipping address don't match or other reasons i mentioned above i am 0/878 for getting scammed in 2017 selling at-at's, isd's, hh, th, ge's etc.  all FBM. 

all this scamming in the FBM realm has pushed me to ship stuff to amazon and switch to FBA - getting worried about a gate coming down harder on non-FBA sellers and if you are going to sell on amazon you need to capture the price premium of the PRIME shopper to make up for any scamming.  i wish i would have switched a long time ago.

Edited April 27, 2017 by cladner

[Val-E]

I agree. Why validate the scammer´s tactics by telling them to keep the item?