Get Started Selling On Amazon Marketplace – Rookie Mistakes To Avoid

Get Started Selling On Amazon Marketplace – Rookie Mistakes To Avoid

Mistakes happen. They are a part of life. But mistakes are no way to build your used book business, selling used books, music CDs and instructional DVDs on the Amazon Marketplace. Here are six ‘Rookie Mistakes’ I made that you should avoid if you want to have a long-term successful business selling on Amazon:

Mistake #1: Thinking the customer wanted a thank you note. My initial idea was to build a relationship with people who purchased from me, drive them back to my Amazon Bookstore page, and sell more books to a happy customer. But the customer belongs to Amazon, not me. Adding a ‘Thank You’ note is permissible under Amazon’s Terms Of Service (TOS)…. but it doesn’t really help you make any money.

Bottom line profits suffer. You have to pay the cost of the card, the time it takes you to fill it out, and additional postage you will be charged, as you must pay the letter’s first class postage on top of the USPS Media Mail rate when you put anything inside the package containing your shipped books.

Doing all this work is unproductive. The customer is not looking for a new place to shop. They are looking for certain titles to buy. If you have what they are looking for, then they’ll be back. The best way to have an old customer purchase from you again is to source those similar types of books, list them at a competitive price in the Amazon Marketplace, and wait.

Mistake #2: Forgetting that book descriptions are all buyers have to go on. The majority of the problems I’ve had selling used books on Amazon were my own fault. Early on, I was not careful making sure that the book I was listing was free of highlighter markings or scribbles in the margins. This is what most buyers want to know, since they cannot pick up the book and thumb through it, they depend on the seller to accurately and honestly describe the book for them.

I remember one time listing such a marked-up book as “Like New” because I was in too big of a hurry to actually thumb through the inside text pages. The cover looked like new, the spine was uncreased. But when the customer received the book and found it marked up, he was incensed.

I immediately refunded the purchase price, the original shipping and the return shipping plus 10% premium for taking up the buyer’s time having him make a trip back to the Post Office to return the book.

But I learned to be extra careful describing my books. I usually take longer to list books now — sometimes three times as long — as I flip through pages of the book, looking for markings or new edition indicators. And I now list books I once described “Like New” as “Used – Very Good.” This change has helped eliminate any complaints about the condition of the books I’ve sold over the past year.

Mistake #3: Not being careful with labeling packages for shipment. I’m a pretty good speller. My handwriting is good. But I do get in a hurry. There always seems to be distractions when I’m addressing book packages to take them to the Post Office. I have more than one time put the wrong buyer’s address on the wrong package. Fortunately, I’ve caught the mistake because I have a quality control program where I match up the USPS Delivery Confirmation stickers with the correct book.

When I fill out a delivery confirmation form, I flip it over and write the title and the price the book sold for in a white space on the back. This gives me a good way to ensure I’m putting the right book in the correct shipping envelope. Yes, I’ve had to throw away quite a few envelopes this way. But that is better than trying to resolve books, CDs and DVDs being sent to the wrong address.

Numbers can get transposed if you’re not careful, and zip codes could get mixed up. Take your time and double check shipping addresses, city names and zip codes before heading off to the Post Office. You’ll save yourself a lot of aggravation later on by doing so.

Mistake #4: Not organizing book inventory correctly. One mistake I keep making comes down to my own need to get organized better. By this I mean that sourcing, buying and listing the books is easy for me; getting them sorted and organized so I can quickly find them again when the orders roll in is not so easy for me.

It seems I have an innate need to relive the frustration of hunting down books for 20-30 minutes when the orders come in, muttering such things as, “I know I saw that book in this stack… no, this stack… no, this stack.” Books that are too hard to locate and retrieve quickly will squander your valuable time, and that reduces your profits when you could be doing something more productive… like listing more books.

The solution: group your books by subject, then figure out a simple way to organize them that makes sense to you — by date listed, by author’s last name, alphabetical by title — whatever system works for you, pick one and stick to it. And to store your books, you need to set aside one room in your home with easy access, making sure it is dry and not too humid, not too close to windows which let in damaging sun rays, and a sturdy lock on the door if you have small children or grandchildren packing crayons.

Mistake #5: Spending too much money on shipping supplies and postage. My initial shipments went in expense padded envelopes I picked up at a local discount store. I paid too much and lost a lot of profit in those early days.

Now, I buy the larger manilla envelopes, and I reinforce the seams and the corners with clear plastic shipping tape and I wrap the books in bubble wrap. The wrap keeps the books snug and secure in the mail (protecting their condition without adding much weight to the package), the clear shipping tape keeps the envelopes from bursting open during transit, and I have never had a complaint with the way the books arrive. Along the way, I am sure I’ve saved at least 30 percent on shipping supplies.

As far as postage, initially I planned on offering First Class Package rates to deliver the books faster. But the cost is close to 50 percent higher than Standard Media Mail, and the customers seem to understand that they are not paying for expedited shipping. There have been no complaints using Media Mail from the folks who have purchased used books from me on Amazon.

Mistake #6: Forgetting to use vacation settings at the right time. When I travel out of town, and I cannot fulfill orders, I always log onto my Amazon Seller Account homepage the day before I leave, click on the Store Settings, and select the vacation settings. This immediately removes my inventory from the Amazon system, and although I don’t make any sales on that day, I can concentrate on packing and getting ready for my trip.

When I return, I don’t click the ‘Active’ button in my account until the airplane has safely touched down at my home airport.

One time I made the mistake of resuming listings the day before I was to return home, but my flight got delayed due to bad weather and orders came in while I was stuck in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Fortunately, because you have two business days to ship the books, I had some wiggle room and I was able to beat the deadline once I did arrive home.

These six mistakes were not the only ones I’ve made along the way, but they helped teach me how to better manage my time and resources so I could make more money and satisfy more customers. I made the decision to turn these mistakes into learning opportunities to help me build a better, more profitable used book business. I hope they can help you do the same, because the only real mistake you can make is in not starting your own part-time used book business to earn extra income. As basketball great Michael Jordan once said: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”