# Any Amazon sellers here? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 6, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052 "2008-12-06T22:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Key_Lime_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/1 "2008-12-06T22:37:10Z")
I like to buy & sell books. I’ve been selling on Ebay, but I heard Amazon was much more friendly to sellers. Then I checked, and it appears to me that Amazon will take $.99 + $1.35 + 15% of the sale price for each book! [Amazon.com Help](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161240) Am I reading this right? What makes Amazon better than Ebay for a small-time bookseller? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/2 "2008-12-06T22:56:01Z")
I haven’t sold at Amazon for a couple of years. They still give you a credit to offset shipping costs, don’t they? I liked it because it was easy. And because Amazon collected the payment from the buyer. All I had to do was list and price, pack and ship. I know there are a few Dopers who are big-time Amazon sellers. Maybe they’ll pop in with more substantive advice. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/3 "2008-12-07T03:04:10Z")
I’m a small time Amazon seller. I like it because there are a lot less hassles than Ebay. No scams, no backing out. I usually sell expensive financial books after I’ve read them once. I’ll list a $50 book for about 35-40 dollars. The book will sell in a day or so. I’ll get the payment and use the money for an additional purchase. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/4 "2008-12-07T09:56:52Z")
What I always wondered was - when I’ve ordered from a seller, the book still seems to come in an amazon style box with an amazon invoice. How do they work that? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/5 "2008-12-07T10:35:47Z")
I’m a small-time seller and I use the [Fulfillment by Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fulfillment-by-amazon.html) service: Every few weeks, I send all the stuff I want to sell to an Amazon warehouse in one big box, set the prices, and Amazon will take care of packing and shipping to individual buyers for me. It’s SO much easier than eBaying it’s not funny. It might cost more (I haven’t really compared), but the time I save is worth way more to me. It benefits the buyers because they get the item shipped directly to them from Amazon (that should answer your question, **jackdavinci** ) and these orders are eligible for their regular Free Shipping and Amazon Prime (flat-rate 2-day delivery) promotions. And, of course, it gives you an edge over other sellers who normally ship Media Mail. For media items (books, CDs, DVDs, and video games), Fulfillment by Amazon uses an [EasySell](http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fulfillment-by-amazon.html) pricing scheme that charges you a simplified per-unit+weight fee. For all other product types, they charge you for warehouse storage by duration and volume. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/6 "2008-12-07T11:27:01Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > What I always wondered was - when I’ve ordered from a seller, the book still seems to come in an amazon style box with an amazon invoice. How do they work that? My daughter is the Amazon book seller in our household, but she’s out today, so I’ll just say that maybe they are old Amazon boxes. She certainly packs and sends out the books herself - usually in good old fashioned brown paper. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/7 "2008-12-07T13:29:53Z")
I’m an Amazon Seller, & I use plastic bags & brown paper. I like Amazon because refunds & guarantees apply. And Ebay, at one time, had a reputation. For never getting paid/never getting your goods. I **never** buy there, **never** sell there. BTW–if you sell on Marketplace, rather than try & auction, there is never a listing fee, only if/when you sell. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/8 "2008-12-07T20:58:44Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > What I always wondered was - when I’ve ordered from a seller, the book still seems to come in an amazon style box with an amazon invoice. How do they work that? Well, the invoices are printed out by the seller. Amazon sends them to you to print out and include in your shipment to the buyer. Not sure about the boxes. ---
**Author:** ![Skylark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Skylark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skylark)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/9 "2008-12-07T23:26:22Z")
What kind of books do yous guys sell? I’m intrigued. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/10 "2008-12-08T00:13:20Z")
> [@Skylark](#): > > What kind of books do yous guys sell? I’m intrigued. Science Fiction, fantasy, mysteries, Anime/manga, & some comics stuff. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/11 "2008-12-08T00:45:43Z")
> [@404 Clue Not Found](#): > > I’m a small-time seller and I use the [Fulfillment by Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fulfillment-by-amazon.html) service: Every few weeks, I send all the stuff I want to sell to an Amazon warehouse in one big box, set the prices, and Amazon will take care of packing and shipping to individual buyers for me. It’s SO much easier than eBaying it’s not funny. It might cost more (I haven’t really compared), but the time I save is worth way more to me. You can make a profit even after deducting the cost of shipping your books to Amazon? Cool. Even if the profit isn’t big, that’s a good alternative to donating overflow to the library. I suspect that a lot of the books I give to the library end up on their sale table and are bought by someone who then sells them at Amazon. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/12 "2008-12-08T01:01:53Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > You can make a profit even after deducting the cost of shipping your books to Amazon? Cool. > > Even if the profit isn’t big, that’s a good alternative to donating overflow to the library. I suspect that a lot of the books I give to the library end up on their sale table and are bought by someone who then sells them at Amazon. Well, I don’t know about profit. I’m not doing it as a business; I just sell old things that I don’t use anymore. Kinda like an eternal garage sale. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/13 "2008-12-08T01:13:11Z")
> [@404 Clue Not Found](#): > > I’m a small-time seller and I use the [Fulfillment by Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fulfillment-by-amazon.html) service: Every few weeks, I send all the stuff I want to sell to an Amazon warehouse in one big box, set the prices, and Amazon will take care of packing and shipping to individual buyers for me. It’s SO much easier than eBaying it’s not funny. It might cost more (I haven’t really compared), but the time I save is worth way more to me. > > It benefits the buyers because they get the item shipped directly to them from Amazon (that should answer your question, **jackdavinci** ) and these orders are eligible for their regular Free Shipping and Amazon Prime (flat-rate 2-day delivery) promotions. And, of course, it gives you an edge over other sellers who normally ship Media Mail. > > For media items (books, CDs, DVDs, and video games), Fulfillment by Amazon uses an [EasySell](http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/fba/fulfillment-by-amazon.html) pricing scheme that charges you a simplified per-unit+weight fee. For all other product types, they charge you for warehouse storage by duration and volume. How does the item’s listing reflect that Amazon is fulfilling the order even though a third party is selling it? I don’t recall seeing anything like that in any of the new & used pages I’ve looked at. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/14 "2008-12-08T02:11:26Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > How does the item’s listing reflect that Amazon is fulfilling the order even though a third party is selling it? I don’t recall seeing anything like that in any of the new & used pages I’ve looked at. Take a look at [this listing](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000CRR2V6/). Under the first seller, “alltheusernamesaretaken” (shameless plug), you should see a “FULFILLMENT BY AMAZON” logo. The shipping price (either free over $25 or eligible for Amazon Prime if you’re a member) is another indicator. ---
**Author:** ![CrowJane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@CrowJane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrowJane)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/15 "2008-12-08T16:17:10Z")
Selling on Amazon is much, much easier than eBay; but they do take a far bigger chunk of the selling price, and you can’t change the postage cost to account for weight. I’ve found that it’s just not worth selling some books on Amazon because the percentage they take, + cost of posting, means I make about 30 pence. This particularly applies to hardcover books or very heavy paperbacks. The main benefit of Amazon is that everybody looks there: eBay just isn’t great for books. It’s also free to list the books and you only pay fees if/when the item sells. ---
**Author:** ![rexwood77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90db22/32.png) [@rexwood77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rexwood77)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-amazon-sellers-here/476052/16 "2012-06-16T04:25:24Z")
> [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](#): > > I like to buy & sell books. I’ve been selling on Ebay, but I heard Amazon was much more friendly to sellers. > > Then I checked, and it appears to me that Amazon will take $.99 + $1.35 + 15% of the sale price for each book! [Amazon.com Help](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161240) > > Am I reading this right? What makes Amazon better than Ebay for a small-time bookseller? We used to sell books on Amazon several years ago. We’d go to dozens of library sales and buy up hundreds - even thousands - of books, then list them on on Amazon, Alibris and [Half.com](http://Half.com). Sales were vigorous but the profits weren’t that great. The only time we made any money was when we started selling videos. We’ve been doing that since 2002 and now have our own website. We make enough to pay the bills and even have a small fulltime staff to help with packaging, bookkeeping and shipping. The trick is finding videos that people are looking for. There’s so much competition out there. At first we’d buy used DVDs. But there’s not much profit there. Then we had a Chinese manufacturer dropship for us. Worst experience I ever had. We were told the DVDs looked exactly like the American counterpart. This wasn’t true. There was Chinese writing on both the covers and the labels. More often than not these were returned to us by our Amazon customers. After that we started doing research and finally found a supplier from whom we now purchase in bulk. And we’re quite happy with the product. We no longer sell on Amazon, Alibris, Ebay or any other site where we have to pay a commission. We have our own site at [sasquatchvideo.net](http://sasquatchvideo.net) People find us through Google Product Search. And we also have a small number of Amazon and Ebay sellers who we dropship for. Google will soon be going to a pay-per-click format which I expect will be costly, so we’re looking for more people to dropship for. If you’re interested, go to [www.sasquatchvideo.net/pages/dropshipping](http://www.sasquatchvideo.net/pages/dropshipping) for details.