The Wholesale Forums

[studio1one]

I sell anywhere between 200 and 400 items a day on Amazon and everyone who says keeping your account is hard is absolutely spot on, it can be very difficult. Customers are really demanding and there are a lot of scammers that know they can play you like a fiddle because of how tight the system is. We have had 3 30 day suspensions in the 2 years we have been on there and never gone out of our set limits by Amazon. At one point we got a 30 day when our ODR (defect rate) was at only .6% all because a supplier sent us the wrong chargers, that were only compatible with older ipods. We sent out around 200 before we knew so we did a mass refund to all customers.

I live in constant fear of getting booted because it is our main income and we would struggle without it. I would say if you plan to do volume on Amazon make sure you have got really good follow up customer service. We use Word for bulk emailing customers, everyday we send anywhere between 600 and 1200 emails o our Amazon customers. First we send one to confirm dispatch, 4 days later we send one to check they have received and are happy and then finally 7 days later a last mail to check everything is ok with the product.

Our positive feedback is still only 93% even though we work like hell at it. I'm amazed by the larger volume sellers that have 97 -98% I have no idea how they achieve it.

[x_Emily_x]

I think the main thing here is something that has already been mentioned.. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I said before that there will be the people on there who are fine, it's good to hear. In a sense its appealing that Amazon are so tight, althugh it's clear that can be a downfall.

May i ask, how easy is it to set up an account?

Can you not protect yourself by setting up more than one?

[ADC]

It's easy to set up. You just need a credit card & bank details and stuff. You need to decide whether you are going to sell off just a normal account or a pro trader. With a pro trader the fees are less but you have to pay a monthly subscription.

For the stuff your going to be selling Em, it might be worth barcoding it yourself. Just had a quick search on there and I can't see anyone else selling that sort of stuff. PM me if you need help getting it barcoded.

[x_Emily_x]

I think i will need help with a few things hun, thank you!

What does barcoding mean?

[ADC]

It means you give it a barcode (like the long number where they scan it in Tesco's )

Amazon is slightly different to ebay, everyoine doesn't make their own listings. If you are selling the same item as someone else you piggy back their listing. So the item title & description is the same for both sellers, but it just says 'available from these sellers'

If you have your own product that isn't already listed on Amazon, you need to give it a barcode and you can create your own unique listing. Then if anyone else piggybacks it you can report them to Amazon.

[YorkieBoy]

Hi,

Does anyone sell clothing on Amazon. I think you need to get permission to do this, dont know why, but is it possible to sell clothing under the standard account rather than as a Pro?

[x_Emily_x]

I have PM'd you, thank you so much!

[TTL]

Originally Posted by x_Emily_x

May i ask, how easy is it to set up an account?

Can you not protect yourself by setting up more than one?

It is fairly easy to open accounts with Amazon, but you must remember that Amazon is a totally different beast to eBay. It's no good being the only seller of green, left-handed, double-ended gizmotrons, if no-one is ever going to specifically search for them. With eBay, any of the words in your title will bring up pages of results, which buyers usually wade through if they are looking for something specific. With Amazon, the same may be true, but usually, by the end of the first page, they quite often start to go way "off-topic" and buyers may lose interest. We have our own barcoded products on Amazon and it has taken a long time to get the sales up and the products on the first page of results, even alongside branded products of a totally different model !!!

If you go for the Pro Seller account, the fees are slightly lower, but each account will be charged £25+VAT per month. This means that you would have to qualify for the Buy Box on both accounts rather than just the one, to remain in with a chance of keeping sales at a good level.

Qualifying for the Buy Box in the "electronics" category means having sales of 150 items or more a month on an account. If sales fall below this level, you may lose the ability to get the Buy Box. The account has also got to have been open for more than 3 months to qualify. There are other criteria, but these are the two most important for new sellers.

We have set up a second account that should qualify for the Buy Box in the next few weeks, alongside our main selling account (that has had it for a long while). As long as you can justify the extra outlay by the second account selling sufficient amounts, it can give peace of mind.

I have seen marketplace sellers with 2 accounts with almost identical names - they obviously like having insurance as well

[studio1one]

Make sre Amazon don't find out as it is against their policy for you to have two accounts, as we found out to our detriment.

[TTL]

Originally Posted by studio1one

Make sre Amazon don't find out as it is against their policy for you to have two accounts, as we found out to our detriment.

Registered in different names, with different bank account details etc., luckily.

I don't know how some of the sellers get away with it. We notice them having more than one account quite blatantly, so Amazon must be able to spot it.

Thanks for the heads-up though.