A Survival Guide - Selling on Amazon (Page 2 of 2)

Amazon.com, Inc. Customer Service PO Box 81226 Seattle, WA 98108-1226 Fax: (206) 622-2405

Corporate Offices, Seattle (206) 622-2335 Fax for Amazon's legal Department: 206-266-7010

UK Customer Service Phone: +44.208.636.9200 UK Mailing address: Amazon.co.uk Ltd Patriot Court 1-9 The Grove Slough SL1 1QP

Amazon Guide to Online Selling

Tracking Links for USPS Delivery Confirmation:

http://trkcnfrm1.smi.usps.com/PTSInternetWeb/InterLabelInquiry.do?origTrackNum=CONFIRMATION

Velocity Limits:

Velocity limits are a fraud-prevention measure, which helps ensure the seller is actually filling orders. Amazon locks your account periodically when you bump up against a monthly limit. It's probably based on the same type of software that credit card companies use to monitor accounts for unusual spending - and hence an alert for a stolen card.

You should receive an automated email from Amazon when you reach your limit with instructions on how to raise your limit. Sometimes, these messages don't make it through, however, and you've got to phone Seller Support yourself. Here's the FAQ.

Canceling a Pro-Merchant Account:

From your Seller Account, under the heading "Settings," click on "Edit your seller settings." Scroll down to "Pro Merchant Subscription" and click "Cancel subscription." When you cancel, you have the option of closing all your listings or keeping them active and continue selling as a non-Pro-Merchant.

Vacation Settings:

At the bottom of your Seller Account page is a link for "Update Your Vacation Settings." Going on vacation makes your listings invisible to customers until you return from vacation.

Amazon Alliance:

Amazon Alliance polices Marketplace by kicking off unethical sellers - those caught selling pirated products or those with excessive refunds or A to Z claims. It's extremely hard to communicate with the Alliance folks. It's a "don't call us, we'll call you" deal. But their email address is:

Create a Detail Page:

Pro-Merchants can create catalog pages for pre-ISBN books. Go to your seller account page and under the heading "Manage Your Product Detail Pages," click "Create a product detail page in our catalog."

Also, Amazon has an enhanced version of its Bookloader bulk-listing tool that will enable Pro-Merchants to automatically create book detail pages for older books without ISBNs:

What Is "Amazon Sales Rank"?

Amazon ranks each book according to how fast it's selling compared to the other 4-million odd titles in its catalog. The top bestseller has an Amazon Sales Rank of 1 and is currently outselling every other book on Amazon. The slowest-selling book has a rank of 4,000,000 and change. Books with no recorded Marketplace sales have ranks of "None." Sales of used books as well as new items sold by Amazon are counted in the rankings.

It's ironic that books with high Amazon Sales Ranks or even a rank of "None" tend to be valuable, since it's often a seller's market. These are the books that are hard to find and competition among sellers is low. The only problem is waiting for that one-in-a-million buyer.

Why Some Sellers List at Inflated Prices:

It's possible the seller made a typo when listing their book for sale or while editing their listing. Perhaps they meant to enter a price of $13.46 and instead entered $1,346.00.

There are also several Amazon sellers who price books at 10 to 20 times their market price. They do this on all their listings, so it's no accident. They're counting on one dopey buyer out of a million who figures the highest-priced book must be best. These high-ballers most likely on't have any books in inventory; they just have a file of ISBNs they upload to Amazon Marketplace after jacking up the prices. When they get a sale, they probably drop-ship through another bookseller.

Why Some Sellers List Books for a Penny:

They're crazy. Seriously, a few years ago it was possible to make about 40 cents by selling a lightweight paperback in a cheap bubble mailer. But nowadays shipping costs eat up all of Amazon's shipping allowances and then some. Plus, buyers of penny books tend to be your worst customers.

More FAQs:

Visit this page for Amazon's FAQs on payments, fulfillment and returns, listing and relisting items, and feedback:

Secret Weapon when All Else Fails:

Whether this email address is really assigned to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a mystery. But it's abundantly clear that messages sent to this address are monitored closely and that complaints from sellers are followed up on promptly. If you're having a problem on Amazon that seems impossible to solve, emailing jeff@amazon.com can break the logjam.

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Questions or comments?
Contact the editor, Craig Stark
editor@bookthink.com

Filing an A-Z Claim:

Responding to an A-Z Claim:

Download Buyers Waiting List (available to Pro-Merchants only):

Amazon Rebate Center:

Snail Mail Address for Customer Service: