Can anyone share with me their experiences with selling on Amazon.   I sold some stuff years ago and am now thinking of listing some items on there again.  I know their policies and prices have changed.  I am getting tired of the ebay fees and more the people purchasing on there trying to scam.  I am wondering if it makes sense to sell and ship self, or if there is a way to send them all items and fulfill for you.  What are the cost benefits or lack off from either way.  

 

 

Thanks for any information or experiences.  

Losing access to Amazon would be far more significant to me than eating the s*** sandwich that 10188 has turned into.

Correct. With one less way to distribute the sets, everything will become more difficult. It's just not LEGO sets though. Amazon is talking about some of their most note noteworthy brands. There is going to be a huge backlash at some point and some smart entity with deep pockets and the ability to mimic the 'old' Amazon will benefit.

1 hour ago, TargetZero said:

that seller in fees yeah.. how much you think they made a year? WEll, with that kind of mentality, and rules like this, they will only be big compagnies, I know, we are going that way. In 20-30 years, they wont be much compagnie they will be own by the same...

 

How else would you have it?  Do you think that the government should regulate Amazon's marketplace and dictate who Amazon should and should not give access to?

1 hour ago, TargetZero said:

 

who here have invoince from manufacturer or distributor? walmarts invoice wont work, let the big be big, and you small dude, go to hell.

You don't have to be big to survive in this environment...you just have to be smart and enterprising about how you conduct your business.  I've already made it past other gates that Amazon has set up and already have the gears in motion so I'll be ready if they drop the Lego gate on me.

1 minute ago, redcell said:

I've already made it past other gates that Amazon has set up and already have the gears in motion so I'll be ready if they drop the Lego gate on me.

So you are the one creating all of the alternate Lego listings today! Lol.

39 minutes ago, asharerin said:

So you are the one creating all of the alternate Lego listings today! Lol.

No way...trying to skirt the rules is a sure fire way to get banned.  Besides, listing in secondary or tertiary listings on Amazon is a waste of time because all of the action happens in the primary listing.

1 minute ago, redcell said:

No way...trying to skirt the rules is a sure fire way to get banned.  Besides, listing in secondary or tertiary listings on Amazon is a waste of time because all of the action happens in the primary listing.

it can be very rewarding if you play it right

32 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

it can be very rewarding if you play it right

...and devastating when Amazon chops off your hands for playing. And Amazon will. I've know it to happen for many, many authors who skirted the edges of the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, including yours truly. I don't even blink in Amazon's general direction anymore. 

Plenty of unscrupulous sellers would commingle garbage. They would eventually get suspended, and then sign up for a new account the next day. Now they need invoices and $1k - $5k per turn. You now what the effect will be on them [emoji4] 

Can you tell
Me how you know which asin have had issues? I don't want to list those either [emoji3]

Can you tell
Me how you know which asin have had issues? I don't want to list those either [emoji3]

If you try and sell on it and it doesn't let you of if it asks for invoices.

4 hours ago, Brickbuilder.g said:

Can you tell
Me how you know which asin have had issues? I don't want to list those either

Just click "add product", enter the set you want to check and it will show you before you proceed if the ASIN is open for you or not.  Like this...

Edited August 30, 20169 yr by DadsAFOL

10 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

Correct. With one less way to distribute the sets, everything will become more difficult. It's just not LEGO sets though. Amazon is talking about some of their most note noteworthy brands. There is going to be a huge backlash at some point and some smart entity with deep pockets and the ability to mimic the 'old' Amazon will benefit.

With hundreds? thousands? of sellers on here, let's pool our resources together and bring back the old Amazon that sellers and customers want 

 

Edited August 30, 20169 yr by tacsniper

Dang. How old is that screen shot?  In top sellers: Lord of Rings VHS

Update : 75135 is now a go for my account . Didn't have to do anything . 

This is becoming too much of a guessing game 

3 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Update : 75135 is now a go for my account . Didn't have to do anything . 

This is becoming too much of a guessing game 

Same here--they must have cleared the ASIN. 

75916 is clear now, too. (Dilophosaurus Ambush)

Interesting... no need for individual ASIN gates because the brand is gated now? 100% pure speculation. 

Edited August 30, 20169 yr by biking_tiger

1 minute ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Update : 75135 is now a go for my account . Didn't have to do anything . 

This is becoming too much of a guessing game 

All ASIN level blocks in Lego are being removed now. 75916 is clear too. There will be no more going forward

TFA is still in effect but that is another brand restriction.

Same for me as well.  That's a relief because I've got a huge stack of 75916 and am targeting 75135.

Just now, asharerin said:

All ASIN level blocks in Lego are being removed now. 75916 is clear too. There will be no more going forward

TFA is still in effect but that is another brand restriction.

If they leave the TFA blocks in place, those sets will be real gold mines when they retire since the universe of approved sellers will be further limited.

Just now, redcell said:

Same for me as well.  That's a relief because I've got a huge stack of 75916 and am targeting 75135.

For the love of God do NOT commingle them haha.

75135 and 75916 are clear for me too

In related news :

 

3 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In related news :

 

 

I'll take the West Coast, you guys figure out the rest.

Just now, asharerin said:

I'll take the West Coast, you guys figure out the rest.

Hunger game style ?

7 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In related news :

 

On other parts of the internet we just call that FREE SHIPPING  

4 minutes ago, asharerin said:

I'll take the West Coast, you guys figure out the rest.

No thanks...not touching that with a 10 foot pole.  That's an easy way for your metrics to go to hell if you operate at any level of volume without a very sophisticated fulfillment operation.

So if I got this right :

Lego is now gated without any specific ASIN being blocked aside from the first wave TFA .

2 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

So if I got this right :

Lego is now gated without any specific ASIN being blocked aside from the first wave TFA .

Crossing fingers they'll fix that.

14 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In related news :

 

We were one of the early SFP sellers.  I can't say if its really worth it or not.  On one hand, sales are up significantly when items have the Prime badge.  On the other hand, you must buy shipping from Amazon and sometimes it forces you into an expensive overnight cross country option.  If you FBA that is the far better option because they cover whatever postage it takes to get your item delivered on time.  However if you have items that you don't want to send to FBA so that you can control box quality, its a good option to stay competitive as long as you are prepared to eat the occasional crazy shipping cost.

The other thing is its extremely maddening to be at the mercy of the USPS (or UPS but not FedEx because Amazon and FedEx don't play together).  If they don't deliver on time for ANY REASON, you take the hit.  If your on-time delivery metric drops below the threshold you get a "time out" and lose your Prime badging for at least a week until your metric returns to green.