Selling on Amazon

[falsedragon]

As my inventory grows beyond what my store has room for I'm thinking more and more about selling online, but the problem is, I'm in Canada.

eBay fees are ridiculous by the time PayPal takes a chunk, Amazon fees are bad as well.  Half.com wants me to enter my banking information for automatic payment of fees to eBay, but tells me that the information I put in is wrong, so I can't even list a sample item to check it out.

I could build my own website to sell from but then I'd have to spend a fortune advertising it to get any attention.

I'm leaning toward amazon.ca mostly though, because at least they have an option to pay $29.99 a month for a Pro seller account, which removes the $1.49 closing fee on each item.  As long as I'm selling more than 20 items a month it's beneficial.

Example:


Out of the $5.14 I'd get from this particular sale I still need to pay for an envelope and ship the item, which would cost around $2.80, leaving me with $2.34.  Ugh.  If I pay for Pro and keep $1.49 then at least it's $3.83 for me.


I'd love some feedback from anyone currently selling online, especially if you're in Canada.

[EVW]

Don't know if it's possible, probably contact Amazon, but you might try FBA (Fullfill By Amazon) where you ship to the closest processing center in the US and pay those fees which are cheaper.  Just a thought.

By the way, anyone who intends to sell on Amazon gets a Pro Merchant account.  The US Pro Merchant account is 39.99/mo and the break even is 40 sales.  If yours is 20 then yeah, it's a no brainer.  If you aren't selling at least 20-40 a month, clearly it's not even worth messing with.  Best of luck finding a way to make it work.  Those Canada fees seem pretty steep

[falsedragon]

Thanks, that's kinda why I'm looking for feedback from someone already using the system.  I'm curious as to how many items they have listed on amazon and how many sales they typically get per month from having that number listed.

[merscham]

If no one is buying it in your stores, then selling it on AMZN is like gaining money off something that is collecting dust on a shelf.

[genx-mike]

I sell on Amazon.ca but not the cheap stuff like you are looking at. In my experience, that doesn't move very quickly and you'll always have someone willing to sell it for a penny less than you.

Unless you have 500+ items to list, you are not likely going to recoup the cost of the subscription.

[falsedragon]

Thanks Mike, I'm sure I can easily dig up 500+ items to list.  Finding the time to do it would be the difficult part.   Is there a way to browse individual stores on amazon so I could check out your setup?  Or is it just entirely based on searches.

I've also wondered, but never figured out, if there's a way to order multiple items from the same seller as a way to save some of the shipping fees, or if it's always a flat per-item fee no matter how many you buy.

I really can't fathom why they charge 3 separate charges on the sale of an item though.  $1.49 closing fee, 15% commission and another $1+ depending on what the item is (dvd, game, etc.)  It's mind-boggling really.

[wannabevideostoreowner]

The people at Amazon are geniuses. Collect money when someone buys an item from them. Collect money when someone doesn't. Either way, they get theirs.

I've never understood the economics of people selling $.01 DVD's, CD's, books, etc., on the site... even with the $3ish shipping. The majority of that shipping goes to Amazon. You would get a cent or so and have to pay a buck to mail it?

Even with the membership plan mentioned that "saves" you the $1.50 (but not really since you have to pay $30/month for that plan so you are paying for it in some way either way)... you make a $1.50... cheapest, cheapest possible way you can mail it is $1 or so. Just doesn't seem worth it.

[twinvid]

We do all of our online selling on half.com. It is pretty simple we pay a15% comission when an item sells and that is it. No monthly fee, no listing fee no other fees other than half taking part of the $2.99 they charge for shipping (we get $2.39) which works fine. We ship everything 1st class which is actually cheaper than media mail.

Bob

[falsedragon]

That sounds much better Bob, I'll have to take another look at half.com.  As mentioned before though I can't seem to get past the part where they want my banking info.  I put in the right numbers but it insists it's wrong.  Maybe it's a Canadian thing, again.

edit: Scrap that... "At this time, Half.com accepts inventory only from within the 50 United States."