posted on October 31, 2000 05:11:59 AM
Ahh, more changes. Ok, what is the Amazon Marketplace all about? Looks like all of my Z-Shop listings are now there as well as on Z-Shops. The point of this is what?
I am beginning to think that all of the troubles I had this weekend may be linked to Amazon attempting to fire up this new feature / sellers page interface. I will mull that over when I enter the 100 plus auctions that did not auto relist (after searching through the 500 plus items I had active on Friday to find out which 100 they are). Arrrrgh - another day of effort shot.
posted on October 31, 2000 08:39:45 AM
Just went over to Amazon to see what was going on this morning. They are touting this Amazon Marketplace pretty highly: http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/help/sdp-about-marketplace.html/058-4157819-3358651
(Sorry--don't know UBB). The marketplace looks like it's set up to compete with half.com. You can list books, CDs, videos, DVDs, and video games directly from Amazon's retail page. The listing will stay active on the retail page for 30 days--no charge to list, but if the item sells, the seller is charged 99 cents plus 15% of the selling cost. (The 99 cents is waived for Pro Merchants.) Plus there's a shipping allowance added in by Amazon like half.com.
There are some more details, but that's the gist of it. As a zShops seller primarily of books, with a few videos and CDS thrown in, I don't like this a bit. No wonder they are cutting the crosslinks--the Marketplace and zShops sellers will be in direct competition.
From what I gather all of your Z Shop listings are now also included in the Marketplace (at least all 140+ of my Z-Shop listings were). I called an Amazon Auction Pro rep and did some trial searching with him. My items came up nicely on the search results and I can not really complain. Seems interesting so far.
My questions now center around the "Seller Account" page. Why have two accounts for Z-shops and Marketplace sold listings if they are all one in the same? Why not just place a clickable box in the "list a Z-Shops item" page that asks if you want to list the item as a Marletplace item as well? Hummmm.
posted on October 31, 2000 09:04:04 AM
aardvark01-
I sure hope that my zShops listings are NOT part of the Amazon Marketplace--Marketplace items are charged a 15% fee, whereas zShops items are charged 5% (plus an additional 25 cents + 2.5% if the buyer uses 1-Click).
Addditionally, the shipping fee for Amazon Marketplace is determined by AMAZON--not the seller. I don't overcharge for shipping, but I do include the cost of my packaging n the shipping fee, and for oversize hardbacks, Amazon's $2.03 is not going to cut it.
I believe that the reason for two results pages for zShops and the Marketplace is that they aren't one and the same--at least based on the rules for the Marketplace, I surely don't want them to be one and the same!
posted on October 31, 2000 09:11:57 AM
My Z-shops do not have these items books, CDs, videos, DVDs, and video games. I'm a bead seller, so why are all my beads in the marketplace? What are they linked too?
Oh this is interesting.
I would really like to just concentrate on the Christmas season not all these darn changes.
Why is it so hard to just list and sell? I just got ready for a big listing on ebay and they changed all the catagory numbers (yet to roll out!) Auctions scheduled to launch need to be re-done.
ARGH! Ebay Amazon I can't win this week.
I'm too busy today with Kiddy Halloween stuff, you know like my daughter who suddenly cant find her costume and the party starts in an hour
I'll look at it more later, after my sugar high kicks in, it will probably make more sense.
I don't mind the 15% selling fee if I get more traffic and sales.
The flat shipping rates are OK as far as my magazines sales are concerned. I get a lot of foreign bidders and this might reduce some of the confusion. The worst I can do is break even. If a purchaser pays too much, I can always refund the money through the payments system.
By the way, thanks for the link - it explained the whole thing quite well.
posted on November 2, 2000 10:37:57 AM
It appears Amazon auctions is going right where I said it was 4 months ago on the Amazon sellers board.
What were sellers at the auction will become quasi drop shippers on Amazon's main site. Amazon gets a higher cut of everything that moves and none of the overhead of warehousing, handling, customer contact/service, and shipping hassels.
It might work well unless you have a product that doesn't mesh with any of their retail lines.
What are they linked too?