Every summer, Amazon.com sellers get together in Seattle to share ideas on how to be successful on "the river." Writer, publisher and online seller Skip McGrath attended this year's SCOE conference over the weekend, here is his report.
I just returned from the SCOE, Sellers Conference of Online Entrepreneurs, a weekend conference that bills itself as the "Independent conference for entrepreneurs who utilize Amazon.com as a sales channel." The conference was held this past weekend (July 11-13, 2009) at the Seattle Airport Marriott Hotel about 20 minutes from Amazon's Headquarters.
There were 280 sellers in attendance, both large and small, including a dozen or so eBay sellers who were just getting started on Amazon. Media sellers made up the largest segment, about 70/30, media/non-media.
Although it was not an Amazon event, you wouldn't have known that from the number of Amazon employees who attended (25). The first day was a collection of seminars - mostly put on by some of the 18 vendors who bought space in the exhibit hall. The second day was all Amazon.
Peter Faricy, the VP of Seller Services, gave the keynote address. His main message was that Amazon was a customer driven company and that it considered "sellers to be customers too." Faricy noted that Amazon is aggressively courting new sellers, and said that "the number of independent sellers has increased 19% over the previous year. Independent Amazon sellers now account for 32% of all unit sales on Amazon, up from 25%, five years ago."
In an interview after his address, Peter Faricy confirmed that Amazon wants to attract new sellers - both large and small - and that even beginner sellers are welcome. This was confirmed by the fact that two of the Amazon sessions were aimed at newer or smaller sellers to help them find success on the platform.
The Amazon seminars on Sunday were a mixture of educational seminars and sessions designed to solicit feedback from sellers to improve their systems and services.
On Monday the organizers of SCOE arranged for a group of buses to take attendees to Amazon Headquarters for a 2-hour Q&A with top department managers. The Q&A was wide-ranging and covered everything from policies to technical issues with the Amazon API. About the only contentious issue that arose was postage. Although the USPS has raised postal rates, Amazon has not raised the shipping credits. Since over 70% of the sellers attending were media sellers who primarily use media mail, this was an area of concern. But Amazon felt they had to stay firm on this for the time being as they didn't feel that pricing pressures in the current economy and the current competitive situation in the marketplace would allow them to raise shipping rates at this time.
A couple of sellers raised the issue of rewarding top sellers who deliver an excellent customer experience with recognition and perhaps rewards in placement or fees, but Amazon's Peter Faricy indicated that is not in the offing. Favoring some sellers over others does not seem a direction Amazon wants to take.
About the author:Skip McGrath is a writer, publisher and online seller. He publishes the eBay Seller's News, a free monthly email newsletter for professional eBay sellers. Learn more about his resources for online sellers onhis website.
Every summer, Amazon.com sellers get together in Seattle to share ideas on how to be successful on "the river." Writer, publisher and online seller Skip McGrath attended this year's SCOE conference over the weekend, here is his report.
