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Auctionbytes-Update, Number 60 - December 22, 2001 - ISSN 1528-6703     Previous Story | Contents | Next Story

Selling on Amazon - One Bookseller's Experience By Edith Reynolds AuctionBytes.com December 22, 2001

Amazon.com spells success despite its consistent failure to turn a profit. No other book site on the Internet enjoys the same name recognition. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has attained superstar status. It's lauded as one of the most customer-friendly spots within the World Wide Web. And its foray into the used book market has been profitable for independent booksellers. But changes within the fixed-price, used market portion of the company have left a legacy of confusion. What are the company's strong points? Since Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1995, it's the 48th most recognizable brand name and serves a customer base of over 29 million people. It is a company that has acted quickly to compete on this emerging business landscape and has managed to stay afloat when other companies have failed. Amazon lives on while etoys.com and pets.com have become nothing more than a memory. Its customer mission, according to Bezos, is to be the "earth's most customer-centric company." There's no doubt about that, it is exceptionally customer friendly. But for independent used booksellers, the friendly Amazon landscape may be confusing. Still, it's a sales venue that's hard to beat. David and Denise Carlson of dandgalleries.com are among the booksellers whose sales have been strong on Amazon. "You have to sign up, Edith," Denise advised me on more than one occasion. "You won't believe the number of sales they generate." Denise is an exceptionally bright woman whose advice is worth considering, especially since she and her husband are international booksellers with a flourishing business in New Jersey. Since the attack 9/11, our own Internet book sales declined, so I was ripe to take the advice. Until then, we'd listed our books on Advanced Book Exchange (abe.com), Alibris, Barnes & Noble, Half.com, and through the two ABAA related sites. Our next step was to determine what portion of Amazon.com suited our business best. There were several options: auctions, Z-shops, and Marketplace. AMAZON OPTIONS In 1999, Amazon.com had the good sense to acquire Bibliofind.com, a used-book site developed by Michael and Helen Seltzer that had a strong following among dealers and a rock-solid reputation. Adding this venue to the auctions already offered by Amazon, and their follow-up deal with Sotheby's to provide high-end auctions, Amazon was poised to be both customer- and seller-friendly. As eBay moved toward its Great Collections concept by acquiring Butterfield's auction house and the fixed-price concept of eBay storefronts, it seemed Amazon was preparing to go toe-to-toe with eBay. Amazon suddenly surprised everyone when it closed the doors on Bibliofind and developed two related sites called Z-shops and Marketplace. Z-shops were designed to make unsold auction items and older books a fixed-price site for customer seeking out-of-print titles. It was the site designated to take over the Bibliofind dealers. Newer books with ISBN numbers were relegated to the Marketplace, where books appear listed alongside Amazon's new titles. Amazon advertises: "Buyers and sellers can buy and sell used and collectible books, music, DVDs, videos, console-based video games, electronics items, tools, and photography equipment on the same page where Amazon.com sells that item new." Now, it seemed that ex-Bibliofind members had to split their inventory and focus on two venues instead of one. Each has its own pricing structure and costs. MARKETPLACE Marketplace items appear directly on Amazon's product detail pages. To list items, go to the Amazon.com detail page for the item you'd like to sell, and click the "Sell yours here!" button that appears in the blue box under the product image. Marketplace sellers may list an unlimited number of items for free. A $.99 commission plus a 15% commission is charged per sale. The requirements set out by Amazon for this form of selling are: Used books must be listed at a price at least 10% below the Amazon.com price. Collectible books must be signed, out of print, or otherwise unique--you will have an opportunity to detail why your copy is collectible. Such books must be listed at a price greater than the list price. New books may be sold at any price, but be aware that listings for new books will only appear on product pages when Amazon.com is out of stock. Marketplace sellers must register for Amazon's payment plan, which includes a $2.23 reimbursement to sellers for shipping directly to customers. Z-SHOPS While Marketplace items show up in Z-shops, sellers wanting to list items directly in Z-shops and create a Z-shop Storefront must register for a "Pro-Merchant" account at a cost of $39.99 a month. The monthly fee covers an inventory of 40,000 books. Any book over this figure is charged a 10 cent/month listing fee. There are other costs related to bold headings, etc., but the $39.99 is the basic fee. Z-shop sellers pay closing fees when a sale is made. For items selling for one penny to $25, Amazon charges 5% of the sale. On sales up to $1,000, each sale is charged $1.25 plus 2.5% of any amount greater than $25. If an item sells for more than $1,000, Amazon collects $25.63 plus 1.25%. AUCTIONS Amazon charges a 10 cent listing fee for each item (unless you have a Pro-Merchant account). The closing fees are the same as for Z-shops (see above). PRO-MERCHANT ACCOUNT BENEFITS Amazon pushes the Pro-Merchant account and offers incentives. The $.99 sale commission is waived for Marketplace listings (sellers still owe the 15% commission per sale). The ten cents listing fees for Auction listings are waived. And it is the only way to set up a Z-shop Storefront. Amazon provides a bulk loader for listing and makes it easier to relist items and rebates on monthly Bid for Featured Placement fees. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Is this better than the old system employed by Bibliofind.com? It's certainly more confusing, especially following what had been a simpler approach. Bibliofind operated in much the same fashion as does Advanced Book Exchange (abe.com). Customers and sellers come together directly, which allows the individual dealer to maintain an identity. Amazon allows for an "identity," but it is in a less direct manner. And the process for each sale on the seller's end is time consuming. I find that now, each Amazon sale results in three separate emails sent to the seller, so the first task every morning is to glean out the redundant messages. Payments through Amazon's system come with set fees for shipping ($2.23 given to the seller for media rate shipments). With Z-shops, a purchase takes buyers to a secure site that explains that shipping charges must be added separately. If a shipping charge is not included in the description, buyers are prompted to contact the dealer directly. (This means another email.) Sellers can get around this by including charges in their listings, but many of the venues (including Amazon's Marketplace) won't allow you to list shipping charges within the books' descriptions. If you load your inventory to multiple sites, it's impossible to work around this nagging problem. CONCLUSION For sellers like Charles Agvent, whose inventory is more upscale, Amazon doesn't offer the same clout as the ABAA related sites. Charles was a Bibliofind aficionado and lauds the simple, direct approach that linked customer to seller without a heavy-handed middleman. Our own experience shows Amazon sales consist of more than half our current Internet sales. For sellers like us, with substantial inventory and many low-cost titles, the sales generated make the effort worthwhile, just as Denise Carlson predicted.