Amazon Marketplace cutting off low-volume sellers

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by cartologist, May 9, 2017.

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  1. Their chat reps get more and more useless every year. I've only sparingly used them the past five years but every conversation takes forever to resolve simple problems. Amazon seems to have outsourced their foreign chat reps to the lowest bidder. The reps have an incentive to extend the chat because they don't have to handle the next customer. It's a terribly designed system.
     
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  2. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia

    that's funny because some companies want you to move on as quickly as possible
     
  3. cdash99

    cdash99 Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    Try a good bourbon or single malt for the stress.
     
  4. zongo

    zongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Davis, CA
    I know this issue of Amazon dumping small volume sellers began last year, but did it just amp up this last week? I just noticed that a lot of the CDs in my "wantlist" that used to have at least one seller suddenly have none. It looks they booted a whole lot more sellers that previously survived the last cut?
     
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  5. melstapler

    melstapler Reissue Activist

    The 3rd party sellers have been considered problematic for brands across just about every product category. Having combined Amazon's seller’s marketplace with Amazon Retail, it was bound to happen.
     
    Matthew Tate likes this.
  6. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    They haven't kicked me to the curb yet. But I am 99% vinyl LPs and the odd book.

    Glad I blew out my stock of classical CDs 5 years ago. In fact some of the CD titles I got $50 or $30 each for are now found on the $10 range.

    The CD market really did take a dump in the last 3 years even. It just got worse every year since 2000.
     
    Dave S likes this.
  7. I wonder where all the CD sellers went after Amazon booted them. I haven't seen any sort of new wave over at Discogs. eBay remains relatively healthy for smaller CD sellers.
     
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  8. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    The ones with really poor resale value, sellers with pure junk probably took the hint and got outta the business. Sellers with real prime titles gold discs audiophile surrround and SACDs might have already been using discogs or eBay at the same time as the used Amazon.

    This could account for not seeing much of a ripple of new listings.
     
  9. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    A lot of OOP CDs on Amazon were always ridiculously overpriced. A $15 CD on discogs would be $40 on Amazon. Of course, on ebay, you might end up with very little in an auction style listing.
     
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  10. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    I agree.
     
  11. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Recently, Amazon changed their FBA (shipped by Amazon on your behalf) program so that they now will charge $0.50/month storage for anything you send in. If your CD doesn't sell in one month, it'll cost you $0.50/month after that to keep it in their warehouse until it sells. Same with books and everything else. This kills the attractiveness of the FBA program for long tail type items. FBA is great for getting top dollar (since buyers prefer something sold with Prime shipping to everything else--even if you aren't the cheapest). But with this change, it's not very attractive unless you're selling hot selling items.
     
  12. Graham

    Graham Senior Member

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    All this has done is make me move my film and music selling to eBay after 15 years mainly on Amazon. Lower fees and items tend to sell quicker too. Thanks Amazon UK!
     
  13. jhw59

    jhw59 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rehoboth Beach DE.
    I assume everyone knows this number to reach a person at Amazon in the USA 888-280-3321 and keep pressing zero until you get someone? They've handled my issues every time.
     
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  14. lightbulb

    lightbulb Not the Brightest of the Bunch

    Location:
    Smogville CA USA
    “Poor resale value”, “pure junk”...
    Makes me think of those guys I see at thrift stores buying every CD with a recognizable band or title.
    I’ve always speculated they post those items for one penny, up to a dollar or two, on Amazon.
    Then charge shipping, which is where they profit.
    Is this valid?
     
  15. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    To give an example of how crazy this is, if you send in a sleeve box of 25 CDs (about 12"x 5"x4"), that's gonna cost you $150/year to store in their warehouse while you wait for them to sell. That's on top of their ever increasing pick/pack/ship fees and sales commissions. That's $150/year to store a box that's 0.14 cubic foot. At that rate, anyone could get rich with a big warehouse.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2018
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  16. joachim.ritter

    joachim.ritter Senior Member

    I don't know much about all the different Amazon marketplaces, but I don't think it is possible to makes serious profit on shipping costs, at least not here in Germany.
     
    lightbulb likes this.
  17. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    first of all, shipping was fixed until recently. you couldn't specify it as you do on ebay. Here in Italy, the standard shipping fee could actually be lower than the actual one asked by the postal service. And since many sellers keep using thr standard fee, raising it won't be good for you. So this depends on the country, I guess.
    Famous super "a penny cheaper" sellers have generally conventions going on with the postal service. So they actually have a small profit from the shipping. Plus, they sell million units per year. But they get their stuff mainly from charities, at very low costs. Their volume is their business. But this can't work with a private small-scale seller.
     
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  18. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    When I first started selling an Amazon in the early noughties (US site), it was possible to make a profit on shipping overseas. Even recently, it was possible to make a profit on shipping books (UK site) if they were thin enough to go as a large letter. Shipping to and from Italy is expensive. There's no profit from shipping, and you'll be lucky to make anything at all. It's strange, but it's far cheaper and quicker to ship from Japan than Italy.
     
    The_Windmill likes this.
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