Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)

[Cwadda]

Just wanted to add something about bubble mailers that I do: I re-use them! I agree they are expensive, but if you order stuff online (which I'm sure most of us do) and get stuff shipped to you in bubble mailers, open them as *carefully* as you can (without ripping the seal) and save them! Then when you have something to ship out, use packing tape to seal it back up. Easy-peasy and saves a lot of $$$. I also tend to save Amazon boxes, etc and re-use them for shipping. Admittedly, my online shopping habits aren't the most Mustachian so I have accumulated a lot of shipping boxes (to be fair, many of these are from years back before I started following MMM, which is still probably not an excuse to keep so many of them LOL). But I do have the tendency to browse for deals (on any given item but mostly gadgets and electronics) and buy multiples to flip. Re-using bubble mailers and boxes is a great way to save on shipping supplies. Also, USPS supplies free Priority boxes and mailers but you have to ship Priority. This may make sense in some cases where you are using expedited shipping or where it makes sense to ship something that might be smaller but heavier (over 1lb) - new phones are something that comes to mind in terms of making shipping via Priority worth while.

I've also found that lately, it's becoming less and less worth it to ship bulky items that are low in value. So if you have a large item like a travel backpack, that you're trying to sell, just do it locally on Craigslist. I recently tried selling my old backpack and found that it would cost $50 to ship cross-country. It's large but not that huge and weighs about 10lbs. That's insane!!! So if you're going to get into selling/reselling on Amazon and Ebay the key is to get into selling/flipping smaller items that are worth more (phones, higher-value trinkets/jewelry, small gadgets/electronics, or pretty much anything that will fit in a small bubble mailer or box).

Good call on the bubble mailers. I usually just save a bunch of bubble wrap that I find, then use large manila envelopes and stuff them with bubble wrap. It becomes the same exact thing.

Great pointers on shipping vs. selling local. I agree, shipping has changed a bit since Amazon has been taking over the world with their shipping protocol. They're starting to price on volume vs. weight now because Amazon ships so many things. It's good to sell larger items locally on Craigslist and then take advantage of book selling on Amazon (media mail helps).

[elysianfields]

So here's a gotcha.  I apparently created an Amazon seller account a long time ago, and completely forgot about it.  Now if I try to log in with my usual email address - the one with which I order items from Amazon - I cannot log in.  I contacted Amazon, and they said that my seller account hadn't been used for so long that they closed it, and they cannot reactivate it with the same email address.  That's a pain in the butt - I don't need another email address to check, especially if I'm travelling (which I do with some frequency).

I don't know how long they would let a seller account lie fallow before closing it, I didn't ask.

FWIW,

Elysian

[Cwadda]

I work near a major university so I went on the university Facebook classifieds and bought a bunch of inventory for Amazon i.e textbooks and course materials. So far bought a book for $15 and sold it for $48!

[Lis]

So here's a gotcha.  I apparently created an Amazon seller account a long time ago, and completely forgot about it.  Now if I try to log in with my usual email address - the one with which I order items from Amazon - I cannot log in.  I contacted Amazon, and they said that my seller account hadn't been used for so long that they closed it, and they cannot reactivate it with the same email address.  That's a pain in the butt - I don't need another email address to check, especially if I'm travelling (which I do with some frequency).

I don't know how long they would let a seller account lie fallow before closing it, I didn't ask.

FWIW,

Elysian

I'm part of a Facebook group for sellers, and apparently it's best practice to have a separate seller email and account from your regular personal account. I don't quite remember the rationale behind it... the only thing I can think of is they "prohibit" you buying something directly on Amazon, then selling it through Amazon again at a higher price, so that's a way to avoid that. But in any case, apparently you came out ahead!

[max9505672]

PTF

[Tobias]

Thank you for the thorough thread! I used to sell textbooks and videogames on Amazon when I was in college and graduate school in the mid-2000s. I would take books from professor's free boxes and sell them on Amazon. I only ever had one person complain and demand a refund because the ISBN didn't match (I'd sold an exam copy of the textbook, an identical book given to professors to aid textbook selection). There was a post office on campus so it was easy to mail. I stopped selling when I moved and didn't want to take a trip to the post office for a $5 profit.