Is it worth it to resume selling on Amazon Marketplace?

Amazon's margins on third party sales are better than on new product.

Amazon didn't squeeze the small sellers because they were cutting into their sales. They squeezed them for something else, probably a quid pro quo with the labels.

 

I would say no for too many reasons to even begin articulating.

If it's a valuable item, eBay or Discogs or list it here.

If it's not valuable & you're sure you don't want it, maybe give it to a friend, donate it to a library or thrift store, or put it in a box for the local record store to buy as soon as you have enough items to make it worth the trip.

I learned my lesson years ago that if an item isn't worth at LEAST x, it's not worth the time & trouble of listing online.

 

I think sellers get x number of free listings on eBay, but I generally agree with what you're saying.

 

Amazon concerns about bootlegs, or is that just a fig leaf for big retailers (including Amazon) bullying smaller ones off the site?

 

As kwadguy previously wrote: "The restricted titles--of which there is a huge number--don't follow any rhyme or reason."
I've been able to list and, in one case, sell gray label releases on Amazon. I've also been prohibited from selling regular releases, including the Lou Reed New York box that I mentioned above.

 

I do not understand this requirement . Can't even tell you how many CDs I have purchased from third-party sellers over the years, but these days I buy mostly from eBay (and this forum). edit: and Bull Moose.

 

To be unlocked to broadly sell in the music category on Amazon, you need to produce an invoice, less than 6 months old, that demonstrates you are buying in wholesale quantities from a distributor. A retail purchase from anyone will not qualify.

 

Amazon has always tried to "fix" prices. I remember when I first signed up as a seller. I read the fine print stating I was not allowed to offer that item on another venue (including my own website) for a lower price than I offered it at Amazon. This is classic price-fixing. But what are you going to do. And they were asking buyers this question of "if you've seen any of our items for sale at a lower price elsewhere, please let us know". Yeah, a way to get buyers to rat out sellers who have their items somewhere with lower fees (like me), and can offer them at a better price due to these lower fees. I realized then that having the same store name across several platforms might not be the best idea. I had 1,300 CDs to unload at that time, and could not afford to be fired by Amazon. Thankfully I got rid of about all of my CD stock before the bottom fell out of it, and before Amazon started deleting the stock of small sellers. I got rid of a lot of CDs in the $50 to $75 range, just about all of them classical titles. Some went high due to smallish labels and being imports from Sweden, Italy, Germany, and some Russian Melodiya labels which did not get reissued by any other labels later.

Speaking of other selling venues, I just sold an LP this morning at a site called Ecrater. It's an ebay BIN style site with no fees. I used to sell a few titles per month there and now it's like one or two per year. It's very slow there due to no advertising. But your things are found in Google searches if someone is looking for an LP, and it's clean professional-looking.