Amazon.com is marketing a new program called EasySell that is geared to consumers who want cash for their books, CDs, video games and DVDs. Unlike the eBay model of letting consumers list and fulfill the items themselves, consumers send the items to Amazon, which sells the product on their behalf. (See clarification below.)

EasySell is similar to the eBay consignment (or drop-off) models attempted by companies like AuctionDrop. EasySell leverages Amazon's fulfillment service, called FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), and lets casual sellers send their used media items to Amazon.com, which handles payment-processing and shipping when the items sell.

If the items don't sell after 60 days, consumers have the choice of paying Amazon.com storage fees or letting Amazon dispose of the items. Amazon will charge storage fees of $.45 / cubic foot per month during the first nine months of the program (January through September), and $.60 / cubic foot per month thereafter.

Amazon.com has been pitching its FBA fulfillment service toward professional sellers who can use the service to fulfill both Amazon and off-Amazon orders. Note that Amazon Pro-Merchants using FBA are ineligible for the 60-day grace period of the EasySell program; EasySell rates are only available to individual (non Pro-Merchant) Amazon sellers.

Amazon.com does not do a good job of explaining how much consignors receive for their items that sell. It appears the EasySell program uses the same fee structure as Pro-Merchants who use FBA:

Fulfillment by Amazon requires you to be a seller on the Amazon platform. Sellers pay a commission on the sale price of the item and other selling fees. For example, the commission for selling a book is a flat $1.20 plus 15 percent of the item cost. In addition, sellers can choose to be a Pro Merchants for a $39.99 per month subscription fee, or they can be Individuals and pay $0.99 per item sold (with no monthly commitment). There are separate fees associated with the storage and fulfillment of the item by Amazon. These fees vary by the size, weight and price of the item. For example, a 2 lb book priced more than $25 would cost $1.80 for fulfillment and about $0.05 per month to store (storage fees vary by size).

Bookseller Steve Weber noticed the new EasySell program and wrote about it on his blog on Sunday (http://weberbooks.com/selling/2007/12/amazon-markets-fba-to-casual-sellers.html). According to Weber, there are complaints about the FBA program from Pro-Merchants on Amazon's discussion boards. "It seems that Amazon should try ironing out these kinks before recruiting lots more FBA users at the height of the holiday shopping season," Weber wrote.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fba_easysell.html

Update 12/3/07: We have asked Amazon.com for clarification on whether the consignor lists the item for sale through the EasySell program, or whether Amazon.com does. With the regular FBA program for Pro-Merchants, the merchant is responsible for listing their items.

Clarification 12/3/07: Amazon does not list products on the Amazon marketplace for sellers using the EasySell program. The model is virtually identical to FBA in that the seller lists the item, and Amazon.com fulfills the items that sell.

An Amazon.com spokesperson said on Monday that EasySell provides a simple UI (User Interface) that allows sellers to list their own products. The commission for EasySell is the same for FBA, which are the same for all of Marketplace (now known as Selling on Amazon), he said. The commission for media products is 15 percent.