Top Rated Seller Tips

You can now buy postage to ship your amazon.com orders directly from Seller Central.

This has been available through PayPal for a long time but has not been available directly from Amazon.

The service is being provided through stamps.com. The only downside I can see is there is a 7¢ charge per transaction. This can easily be made up by the amount you save on Delivery Confirmation.

Click Here for all the details

        

eBay is using a seller that has not had a sale in over a year in one of their promotions.

This would be hilarious if I didn't depend on eBay for my livelihood.
Below is a screen shot of a screen I see when I list an item for sale


In the lower corner is a blurb titled "A Shared Dream" It says ""eBay is our entire online source of revenue for our business and willbe our #1 source for the foreseeable future."-periodpaper

Below is a closeup of the blurb:


I found that compelling so I went to look up the periodpaper account. I could not believe what I found. Here is a screen shot:



As you an see periodpaper is "Not a registered user". As a matter of fact they received their last feedback in May 09, over a year ago.

I will have to assume the shared dream turned out to be a shared nightmare as it has for many eBay sellers in the past 2 years.

        

I lost my TRS status on March 20. The 1st month I could not tell much difference in my sales.

Beginning about April 20 my sales started increasing. My average daily sales were up 15% in April and over 20% in May. June started off pretty good until the 20th when I got my TRS status returned. Sales dropped almost immediately and have continued to do so. Below is a graph showing my weekly sales for the last 4 weeks.

Where do I go to get my TRS status removed? I can't afford it.

        

If you sell used items on eBay you should check your item conditions immediately.

About a week ago I received an e-mail from a dissatisfied buyer complainng that the shirt she had bought from me was used when the listing said it was New. When I checked the lisitng did say "New" at the top of the lisitng even though in the description I had it listed as good-very good.

I checked about 30 of my other used listings(I have over 2500 used listings) and found only one other one that had the condition wrong. Yesterday I started getting offers on  and selling used items and almost all of them had been changed to "New".

Almost all of my used items now say "new". It is going to be a long weekend for me, changing all of these back, as they should be, to used.

        

BusinessInsider.com is reporting that craigslist had the same number of unique visitors in May as eBay did.

Click Here for the story

        

My sales in my eBay store at http://stores.ebay.com/Got-The-Shirt are UP!

They were up 15% in April and so far this month are up a little over 5%. Today(a Friday before a holiday weekend and the last weekend of the month) my sales are almost double my average. My average sale price is also up a little. This is very unusual because I have added very few new items to my store since April 1. I have always raised sales by adding new product. The past 2 months my sales are up with very few new products added..

Are your sales up? If not and you have at least 500 items in your eBay store I will share with you what I have been doing different the past 2 months.

 All I ask in return is your assurance you will try this system for at least 30 days, will not share this system with any other person. and at the end of the 30 days you will give me a report on how well you did and allow me to use your name and store in future promotions for my system.

If you agree to these terms send me an e-mail to gary@garyoverton.com with a link to your eBay store. I will contact you with further details. Remember, you must have t least 500 items in your store. I feel this is the only fair way to test the system. 

        

I have been a 3rd party seller on Amazon.com for almost 10 years and have been one of their biggest cheerleaders until recently.

I have been to the Amazon.com headquarters in Seattle and heard Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speak on both trips. One of the things he said at both talks and in almost every interview I have ever heard with him is how he wants Amazon.com to be the wold's most customer-centric web site.

I admire him for this and think, for the most part he has been successful.

My complaint comes from an experience I have had with Amazon.com over the past few days.

Amazon.com has a service called Web Stores. It is a service where 3rd party sellers, like myself, can set up their own e-commerce web site. I am very interested in doing this and the last couple of years have tried out a bunch of them. After spending a lot of time on each I found that those I tried did not meet my needs and have dropped them.

I had considered the earlier version of amazon.com Web Stores and found it lacking in several ways so I never actually signed up to try it. I was excited to find out that they had a new version and was hoping it might meet my needs.

When I visited the site at http://webstore.amazon.com/ I found it very interesting and set out to find if it offered what I was looking for in an e-commerce web site. I looked at all of their store samples and think I might be very interested BUT I still had a couple of questions to ask before I make a commitment.

I clicked on the FAQ link and found very few in-depth questions. I then clicked on the Contact Us link and found that was just to contact Amazon.com about getting a developer to help you with your store. I could find no other way to contact Amazon.com about their new offering. I posted about this on Facebook and some helpful soul posted a link to the Amazon.com forums for their new Web Stores.
When I visited the forums I found very little helpful information. What I did find was a lot of previous Web Store owners that were dissatisfied with the changeover.

Getting very frustrated I went back to the Web Store home page and clicked on the Contact Us link. I filled it out and in the comments section stated I was not interested in a developer but was only interested in getting a couple of questions answered.
That was yesterday afternoon. Today I received an answer to my request. Here is what it said:

"Hi Gary,

Thank you for your interest in Amazon Services. Welcome to the new version of Amazon WebStore. Here you can take advantage of world-class ecommerce capabilities to design, build and manage your ecommerce business not just on the web, but multi-channel selling across your stores and call centers. Whether you're ready to take your business online for the first time or upgrade your current site, the Amazon WebStore is your solution for creating a top-of-the line professional ecommerce site.

You can review more information about the Webstore pricing tiers here:
webstore.amazon.com/WebStore-Beta/Pricing?ld=EMIn

You can also review the FAQ page:
webstore.amazon.com/WebStore-Beta/Faq?ld=EMIn

If you have additional questions not listed on the FAQ page, please register for the free 30 day trial and then contact our technical support team for assistance using the link below (please note you must be a registered merchant using Seller Central to view this page):
sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/contact-us/contact-amazon-form.html/ref=ag_contactus_foot_home?ie=UTF8&urlStr=%2Fgp%2Fhomepage.html />
Sincerely,

Mary
Amazon Services LLC - An Amazon Company
Amazonservices.com

Note: This e-mail message was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message."

I have several complaints with this response. 1) Mary didn't even have the courtesy to give me her full name(If you were going to send me what is obviously a form letter why did it take 24 hours?) 2) I have already viewed their pricing page(several times) 3) I have visited the FAQ page(several times) 3) I do not have the time to waste signing up just to get a couple of questions answered.

I will just have to assume Amazon Web Stores are not interested in my business.

In closing, I would like to state I know what Jeff means when he states he wants Amazon to be the world's most customer-centric web site. He means the the end-user of Amazon.com products.

        

Do NOT depend on the eBay notification system.

I have found that the eBay messaging system leaves a lot to be desired. Just today, I have not received e-mail notifications of 4 sales and 2 offers(and it is only 1 pm on the west coast)

eBay would probably blame my e-mail provider but I do not having any other problems receiving e-mails except with eBay.

When I go to My Messages in eBay some of the missed communications are there but many are not.

The messages I fail to receive most are offers. I usually get several offers a day so if a few hours pass without an offer I go check on my own. As you can see from the screen shot below I have tabs on my toolbar set so I can easily check. I have one tab for SOLD, another for UNSOLD, another for OFFERS and one for Selling Manager(SM)

        

Since April 12, 2000 I have mailed thousands of packages via the USPS. I only know of 3 that have truly been lost during that time.

This does not keep buyers from claiming they never received their order. I have had 2 such claims just this week.

I use a standard response to every one of these claims that has worked well for me. Since I started usind delivery confirmation on every order and using this response I have NEVER heard from the buyer again.

The response I use is:

That order was mailed on xx/xx/xxxx via 1st Class Mail to:

xxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxx xxxxx xx
xxxxxxxxx, xx xxxxx-xxxx
The delivery confirmation number is: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USPS says this item was delivered on xxxxxx xxxxx. If you do not agree you should contact your postmaster IMMEDIATELY.
If you do not receive satisfaction from the postmaster you should file a report of stolen mail with your local police department and report it to the US Postal Inspectors at postalinspectors.uspis.gov/ /> If you had rather I file the report with the postal inspectors I will be glad to do so. All I will need is a copy of your local police report.
Thanks

Try it. It works!

        

After the 1st month of eBay moving store items to core my results are in.

The good news is my sales in April were up 15% from March.

The bad news is my eBay fees were up 13% during the same time period.

I think eBay is "cycling"(I use this word because of the lack of a better word) the listings in and out. I would go several days at a time and sell almost all former fixed-price items. Then I would go several days and sell almost all former store items. Then I would go for several days and sell a good mix of both.

The days I sold a good mix of both my sales were usually about double the other days. The last couple of weeks of the month the number of days both former fixed-price items and former store items sold increased causing most of my increase in sales month over month.

The 1st 4 days of this month my sales are way down. I am selling almost all former fixed-price items.

How were you're results April over March?