My Tips For Selling on Amazon

Although I've only recently started selling things through Amazon, I think it's been a productive week. In this post, I'd like to pass on a few more tips.

First up, a quick status report. In less than one week, I've posted 134 items. Of those, 47 have now sold. This leads to the first tip on this post (which is an obvious one, but may be useful for new sellers).

Tip #1: If you are going to sell more than 40 items per month, sign up as a Pro Seller. Normally Amazon will charge an extra 99 cents per sale - paying 39.99 per month waives this fee. If you aren't sure, you can wait and play it safe - but if you're going for volume, go Pro.

I attribute most of my success to the quality of my collection (my CDs are all in very good condition), and to my method for listing. As mentioned earlier, I only list items where I can profitably list at the new lowest price. This keeps items which are worthless from cluttering up my store, and makes sure that people looking for used CDs will find mine first.

The interesting thing is that I'm not the only one doing this (naturally). After about a day, almost 30% of my inventory is no longer listed at the lowest price. The marketplace is actually more dynamic than it might seem from just browsing the Amazon site - there's a fair amount of competition driving prices down. If you want a used CD, but aren't in a rush, wait a few days and it might be cheaper. On the other hand, cheap items sell fast, so you may risk losing an item by waiting.

Tip #2: Review your inventory regularly to make sure your listings are competitive. In my case, I do so about once a day. Generally I'm perfectly happy to drop a few cents or a nickel to get the lowest price. For a high proft item, I'll gladly drop a buck. On the other hand, when I see someone competing with a price too low for my preferences, I'll review other offers, and sometimes bring my price up - once the competitor sells this puts me in a good position for the next customer.

I'd also like to note that Amazon has really excellent support for their sellers. Just push a button on the web site, and you will get a phone call from their support immediately. This bypasses the usual security questions since you are logged in to your account to initiate the call. All the support people I have talked to were very friendly and helpful. So, kudos to Amazon. If you have any questions, feel free to call them.

If you're interested in buying quality used CD's, please check out my store front.

Finally, I've found a new outlet for those CDs which I just can't get any value for no matter what - promotional CDs, overstocked junk, whatever. These are going to go to a local artist, and be recycled into various art projects. If I get a chance to see any interesting pieces created out of the donations, I'll try and post pictures.