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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Reader Recommendations => Topic started by: Cwadda on July 20, 2016, 02:29:08 PM

Title: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 20, 2016, 02:29:08 PM
Because what Mustachian doesn't love getting rid of bunch of stuff and getting paid for it?

Hi there folks!

You might have read about fellow Mustachians selling extra things on Craigslist, Ebay, Amazon for side hustles. I was intrigued so looked into selling things on Amazon, my all-time favorite commerce website. Now I have been selling on Amazon for a little over a year. What I found is that the selling process is remarkable:
Meh, I sound like a salesman. Anyway, these are the reasons, applicable to MMM, that I sell on Amazon:
Disclaimer: Amazon is going to take its cut on whatever you sell. Be prepared to pay at least 15% in fees. This is the price you pay for using Amazon’s seller services. In my opinion it’s completely worth it for the reasons I mentioned earlier; however, you should formulate your own opinion based on your own experiences.

Account Setup
Listing
This entire process takes less than 1 minute after you’ve done it a few times.

Fulfilling an OrderPackaging and ShippingPayments

Amazon handles all transactions for you. The money goes into your account as soon as the item is shipped. I have wire transfer set up and it deposits money into my bank account on its own every week or so.

Good luck, I hope this can be the start of an effective side hustle and helps the journey to financial independence!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 20, 2016, 02:29:41 PM
FAQs

Q. Is dealing with Amazon customers a pain in the ass?
A. Surprisingly, no. I haven’t had a single return request out of 57 (and counting) sales. The only problem I had was when a buyer claimed that the item never arrived at their home. I looked at the tracking, which said the item was delivered to the mailbox. Then I simply messaged the seller and said it’s already there. If not, check with your local carrier facility or report a lost or stolen item with your local USPS. Never heard back from them again. If they tried to escalate the case with me, I had had the item insured. No problem.
By the way, doing a return is just as easy as sending out. It’s all done through Amazon.


Q. What if my product is not in the Amazon system?
A. From what I’ve experienced so far 100% of things I’ve tried selling were already cataloged in Amazon. Make sure you search thorougly. If not, you can add your own product (but you need to know ALL the details about it). Or you can put it up on Ebay or Craigslist. I would recommend just selling things that are already cataloged. Books, CDs, electronics. Not antiques or used clothing that which don’t have specific product information.


Q. Can you really sell ANYTHING on Amazon?
A. No. Some products will say “listing limitations apply”. This means you have to be approved to sell in a certain category. I wanted to sell 3 old videogames that were not open for listing. I filled out an approval request form and in about a week I was approved to sell them. After that the games were sold within 5 days.


Q. What if I have missing parts, manuals, original packaging, etc. for something I want to sell?
A. Not a problem, just make note of it in the “Condition note” when listing your product and be as accurate as possible. This way it’ll be on file if someone were to ever dispute. And be honest. I would never buy a book that said “pages might be missing; book might have pencil markings in it”.  What the hell is that supposed to mean? Treat the customer as you’d want to be treated.


Q. What does "Do not ship Amazon.com Pending Order" mean?
A. This happens when a buyer does not have his/her payment squared away. In this case, you will have to wait for the payment to go through. The buyer has 7 days to complete the transaction. If they fail to do so, the item will go back up for sale.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Miss Piggy on July 20, 2016, 07:55:44 PM
Great info. Thanks.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: ender on July 20, 2016, 07:58:28 PM
Posting to follow, this seems like an interesting way to sell items we no longer need!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Choices on July 21, 2016, 01:29:03 AM
We looked into this, but the fees seemed high. What has been your experience? I think ebay takes 10% and paypal takes a cut too, so maybe Amazon is about the same.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: arebelspy on July 21, 2016, 02:45:18 AM
Good luck, I hope this can be the start of an effective side hustle and helps the journey to financial independence!

Super helpful article, thanks for taking the time to write and post it!  :)
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Secretly Saving on July 21, 2016, 05:21:25 AM
Thanks for this info!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cromacster on July 21, 2016, 07:12:15 AM
Question for you Cwadda.

Most of the books that I would be interested in selling have many used books currently for sale for $0.01 plus shipping.  Do you even bother listing such items?  Trying to decide if I'm better off donating them.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Inaya on July 21, 2016, 07:19:03 AM
Fantastic guide, thanks! Been meaning to sell some old textbooks.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: FIREdancer on July 21, 2016, 07:36:44 AM
Thanks for all the information, Cwadda!  I've never sold anything online but have been thinking about doing so.  I've heard that eBay has become less friendly for sellers, so I was leaning towards trying out Amazon.  This is helpful!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 21, 2016, 07:41:02 AM
We looked into this, but the fees seemed high. What has been your experience? I think ebay takes 10% and paypal takes a cut too, so maybe Amazon is about the same.

I completely understand this concern. I think on average Amazon takes 15%. On some shipments you get more shipping credit than what it actually costs to ship, so that helps make up for some fees. There are no Paypal fees because you are getting a check or wire transfer directly to your bank. Someone may PAY with Paypal, but their payment method doesn't matter.

This might not be the case for everyone, but I just think the fees are worth it for the ease and almost zero time + effort required to sell things. You can also be choosy about the things you want to sell. I bought a book at a closing sale for $1 and it sold for $47. I wouldn't have been able to do this without Amazon. After fees I may net $40. But that's still 4000% profit. Anything I can make double profit or more is completely worth it to me, for instance.

Question for you Cwadda.

Most of the books that I would be interested in selling have many used books currently for sale for $0.01 plus shipping.  Do you even bother listing such items?  Trying to decide if I'm better off donating them.

Nope, I don't bother selling those. It would cost less than $3.99 to ship them, so you would be coming out ahead a bit, but it's not worth it IMO. I'd rather, like you said, just donate them.

Quote
Fantastic guide, thanks! Been meaning to sell some old textbooks.
Thanks! Yeah, I've had good results selling textbooks. I actually just sold one today :)

Thanks for all the information, Cwadda!  I've never sold anything online but have been thinking about doing so.  I've heard that eBay has become less friendly for sellers, so I was leaning towards trying out Amazon.  This is helpful!
My experience with Ebay has been a lot less good. Ebay is a site for bidding and more product negotiation. Amazon is more like a huge department store. Both sites always give the buyer the benefit of the doubt, but I find that with Ebay people have even more reason to get the benefit of the doubt. You know what I mean? Amazon is very concrete about what you're getting; Ebay is a lot more "loosey goosey".

I've sold 2 items on Ebay, one of which someone returned because it was the "wrong style". I've had zero returns out of 58 orders on Amazon. Not even an inquiry about the item quality. Happy customers!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 21, 2016, 07:50:40 AM
Adding pictures today to the section on what happens when you sell an item.

Thanks for the questions and feedback, folks!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on July 21, 2016, 08:12:06 AM
Nicely done! Thanks

Seems like an easy way to de-clutter and make some money.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 21, 2016, 08:19:26 AM
Added pictures so now all the steps have pictures!!

I used tinypic to upload them. A little too many ads but click the image and it'll bring you to a full window of the image with no ads. Should I attach pictures through the forums instead?
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 21, 2016, 12:08:38 PM
Added a pie chart to FAQs showing the categories I've sold in.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: katesilvergirl on July 21, 2016, 12:42:04 PM
I just started doing this last week with some unwanted things (digital recorder, travel iron, dog Thundershirt, board games) and it has been awesome! Amazon's fees are hefty, but they are typically about the same as the shipping costs, so I just price things whatever profit amount I want to receive. But the fees are worth it to me because it is SO FAST to post. No pictures needed, just 30 seconds of filling out a form.

Great instructions, Cwadda! I've joined your club!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: SomedayStache on July 23, 2016, 09:36:57 PM
Following
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: NextTime on July 26, 2016, 07:24:55 AM
Well I gave it a go @Cwadda. But my first transaction hasn't gone so swimmingly.

I only put one item for sale to start and yesterday I received a "Do Not Ship Amazon.com Pending Order" email. Apparently they were not able to immediately validate the buyer's payment information.

Then this morning I received an "Unable to process disbursement due" email. Apparently I had not entered my checking account information so they could pay me.

I went ahead and entered that information, but the status of my item now says "Inactive (Out of Stock).

So did I lose this sale? I find it kind of crazy if that is the case. If not having the payment information there was a show stopper why did they even allow me to list an item for sale. And if the sale is lost, now that I have entered the payment information, how do I change the status of my item back to "Active" so it can be sold?




Edit: Please add the setting up the payment information to your guidelines to prevent others from making the mistake I did. And thanks for all the good information.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: elaine amj on July 26, 2016, 07:33:29 AM
Thank you cwadda! We used to sell a little here and there on eBay but haven't been pleased with the seller platform in the last few years so have stuck strictly to our local kijiji ads. I'd love to try amazon for the more niche-type items. e.g. I just put in the donation bin a bunch of brand new ink cartridges (ggrrrr...DH always grumbled at us not to "waste the color ink" - well, guess we sure wasted them now!). Pretty sure they will just end up in the garbage eventually since they will be a hard sell. They mighthave had a better chance on Amazon.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: dramaman on July 26, 2016, 08:08:52 AM
Following
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: retiringearly on July 26, 2016, 08:15:21 AM
In.

Thanks for posting this!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: afuera on July 26, 2016, 08:31:46 AM
Following!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 26, 2016, 02:19:52 PM
Well I gave it a go @Cwadda. But my first transaction hasn't gone so swimmingly.

I only put one item for sale to start and yesterday I received a "Do Not Ship Amazon.com Pending Order" email. Apparently they were not able to immediately validate the buyer's payment information.

Then this morning I received an "Unable to process disbursement due" email. Apparently I had not entered my checking account information so they could pay me.

I went ahead and entered that information, but the status of my item now says "Inactive (Out of Stock).

So did I lose this sale? I find it kind of crazy if that is the case. If not having the payment information there was a show stopper why did they even allow me to list an item for sale. And if the sale is lost, now that I have entered the payment information, how do I change the status of my item back to "Active" so it can be sold?




Edit: Please add the setting up the payment information to your guidelines to prevent others from making the mistake I did. And thanks for all the good information.

Okay, so for pending sales, it means the item has sold, but the buyer needs to have their payment set up. This has nothing to do with you. If the buyer fails to do so (I think in 7 days) then the item goes back up for sale. If it went to inactive then that means it should've sold successfully and that buyer's payment went through. I want to add that this is actually a rare occurrence and has happened to me twice, both of which the items sold after 1-2 days and the transaction was finalized.

Yep, just looks like you had to have a method of Amazon disbursing payments to YOU. I think it was just an email reminding you to set up a way to get paid. Is it all cleared up now? I'll add it to the guidelines as well as the pending order thing to FAQs.



Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 26, 2016, 02:24:10 PM
Thank you cwadda! We used to sell a little here and there on eBay but haven't been pleased with the seller platform in the last few years so have stuck strictly to our local kijiji ads. I'd love to try amazon for the more niche-type items. e.g. I just put in the donation bin a bunch of brand new ink cartridges (ggrrrr...DH always grumbled at us not to "waste the color ink" - well, guess we sure wasted them now!). Pretty sure they will just end up in the garbage eventually since they will be a hard sell. They mighthave had a better chance on Amazon.

I sold an HP $98 ink cartridge set on Amazon that I got from a rebate when the printer broke. It was sold in about 2 weeks. :)
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: SamIAm38 on July 26, 2016, 02:29:44 PM
Nice post! I started doing this a few weeks ago, works well, usually find cardboard in the alleys for free. I just wanted to mention too that shipping costs vary and checking the prices on amazon is usually much better than showing up to your closest shipping facility with everything you want to ship.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: syednaeemul on July 26, 2016, 10:56:08 PM
Posting to follow - I've done Amazon KDP with little success (but not too bad considering a 1-hour write-up now brings $1-3  a month!)
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: dragoncar on July 27, 2016, 01:38:44 AM
How about fulfillment by Amazon?  I hear it's kinda like selling on consignment since they store it for you until it sells.  Shipping to warehouse is supposedly cheap due to Amazon negotiated rates and apparently there is a storage fee if it doesn't sell?
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: dilinger on July 27, 2016, 03:03:25 AM
I did this with a ton of books around 5 years ago.  It initially worked out really well, but there are a couple of things to watch out for...

1) Forgetting that you have stuff on there!  I sold about 90% of the books reasonably quickly.  There were some that sat there for ages, though.  Then, after a year or two a book sold.  I was traveling at the time and had completely forgotten that I even had anything listed on Amazon.  That was a delayed shipment (and on top of that, the book was packed up from a move so I had to pour through random boxes).

2) Price movement.  I listed a used textbook at a price lower than all of the others, and it didn't sell after a month.  I look at the listing, and now there are 3 other textbooks listed lower than mine.  I don't know if those were new sellers, or if older sellers repriced their books to move them faster, but you do need to pay attention and make sure your stuff continues to be competitively priced.

3) Amazon assumes pretty low shipping costs, and you can't control it.  I remember the first few sales, I ended up paying twice as much in shipping costs as Amazon was paying me.  Then I discovered that you're supposed to send books as cheaper Media Mail with USPS.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 27, 2016, 10:13:37 AM
How about fulfillment by Amazon?  I hear it's kinda like selling on consignment since they store it for you until it sells.  Shipping to warehouse is supposedly cheap due to Amazon negotiated rates and apparently there is a storage fee if it doesn't sell?

I'd recommend FBA for businesses. Ones that sell lots of products. FBA allows people to get Prime shipping. For the purposes of just selling extra things I'd say it's better to just sell from your home.

I did this with a ton of books around 5 years ago.  It initially worked out really well, but there are a couple of things to watch out for...

1) Forgetting that you have stuff on there!  I sold about 90% of the books reasonably quickly.  There were some that sat there for ages, though.  Then, after a year or two a book sold.  I was traveling at the time and had completely forgotten that I even had anything listed on Amazon.  That was a delayed shipment (and on top of that, the book was packed up from a move so I had to pour through random boxes).

2) Price movement.  I listed a used textbook at a price lower than all of the others, and it didn't sell after a month.  I look at the listing, and now there are 3 other textbooks listed lower than mine.  I don't know if those were new sellers, or if older sellers repriced their books to move them faster, but you do need to pay attention and make sure your stuff continues to be competitively priced.

3) Amazon assumes pretty low shipping costs, and you can't control it.  I remember the first few sales, I ended up paying twice as much in shipping costs as Amazon was paying me.  Then I discovered that you're supposed to send books as cheaper Media Mail with USPS.
Yes, thank you for pointing out these things.

1) If I'm away from home I usually contact the seller and let them know that they will still receive the item in time. I have shipping always set to standard but always ship first class. So even if I can't ship something for a few days it'll still get there with plenty of time.

2) There's a button when you go to inventory that lets you match the lowest price. I use this pretty often.

3) Yes, definitely look at all the shipping options. Media Mail saves a boatload.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: NextTime on July 27, 2016, 12:26:25 PM
Well I gave it a go @Cwadda. But my first transaction hasn't gone so swimmingly.

I only put one item for sale to start and yesterday I received a "Do Not Ship Amazon.com Pending Order" email. Apparently they were not able to immediately validate the buyer's payment information.

Then this morning I received an "Unable to process disbursement due" email. Apparently I had not entered my checking account information so they could pay me.

I went ahead and entered that information, but the status of my item now says "Inactive (Out of Stock).

So did I lose this sale? I find it kind of crazy if that is the case. If not having the payment information there was a show stopper why did they even allow me to list an item for sale. And if the sale is lost, now that I have entered the payment information, how do I change the status of my item back to "Active" so it can be sold?




Edit: Please add the setting up the payment information to your guidelines to prevent others from making the mistake I did. And thanks for all the good information.

Okay, so for pending sales, it means the item has sold, but the buyer needs to have their payment set up. This has nothing to do with you. If the buyer fails to do so (I think in 7 days) then the item goes back up for sale. If it went to inactive then that means it should've sold successfully and that buyer's payment went through. I want to add that this is actually a rare occurrence and has happened to me twice, both of which the items sold after 1-2 days and the transaction was finalized.

Yep, just looks like you had to have a method of Amazon disbursing payments to YOU. I think it was just an email reminding you to set up a way to get paid. Is it all cleared up now? I'll add it to the guidelines as well as the pending order thing to FAQs.



Well. Not sure what happened. It's no longer Pending and the item is set back to Active. So I guess whomever bought it backed out of it or something.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on July 27, 2016, 01:36:43 PM
Well I gave it a go @Cwadda. But my first transaction hasn't gone so swimmingly.

I only put one item for sale to start and yesterday I received a "Do Not Ship Amazon.com Pending Order" email. Apparently they were not able to immediately validate the buyer's payment information.

Then this morning I received an "Unable to process disbursement due" email. Apparently I had not entered my checking account information so they could pay me.

I went ahead and entered that information, but the status of my item now says "Inactive (Out of Stock).

So did I lose this sale? I find it kind of crazy if that is the case. If not having the payment information there was a show stopper why did they even allow me to list an item for sale. And if the sale is lost, now that I have entered the payment information, how do I change the status of my item back to "Active" so it can be sold?




Edit: Please add the setting up the payment information to your guidelines to prevent others from making the mistake I did. And thanks for all the good information.

Okay, so for pending sales, it means the item has sold, but the buyer needs to have their payment set up. This has nothing to do with you. If the buyer fails to do so (I think in 7 days) then the item goes back up for sale. If it went to inactive then that means it should've sold successfully and that buyer's payment went through. I want to add that this is actually a rare occurrence and has happened to me twice, both of which the items sold after 1-2 days and the transaction was finalized.

Yep, just looks like you had to have a method of Amazon disbursing payments to YOU. I think it was just an email reminding you to set up a way to get paid. Is it all cleared up now? I'll add it to the guidelines as well as the pending order thing to FAQs.



Well. Not sure what happened. It's no longer Pending and the item is set back to Active. So I guess whomever bought it backed out of it or something.

Yeah, they either backed out or they didn't have their act together to do the payment.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on August 02, 2016, 08:07:01 AM
Yesterday I sold the most obscure thing: a waterproof case for a handheld videocam that was manufactured in 2012. It took 6 months to sell but $25 isn't bad!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: aaron3719 on August 02, 2016, 02:39:55 PM
Interesting, will have to give this a spin
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: dilinger on August 03, 2016, 12:50:45 AM
Thanks for the reminder about this.  We've been purging books (goodwill) every once in a while, but I do look online to see if they're worth anything before doing that.  Ones that are worth more than $15 get tossed into a drawer or random pile or something.  A book here, a book there, and I realize now that I've actually got quite a few books to sell.  I put them on Amazon thanks to your post. :)
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on August 14, 2016, 11:37:08 AM
Bump!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Nemesis. on August 28, 2016, 11:44:34 AM
Thanks for posting this Cwadda!

I'd been gathering stuff for a garage sale that I didn't want to bother with listing on Craigslist but I think I can get better prices on Amazon.

A couple of things I wanted to add:

There were a couple of items that Amazon wouldn't let me list unless I had a commercial account.
One was a cookie press and the other was a charging port for an iPod shuffle. Both times it said I wasn't authorized to list the brand.

The other thing (two things actually) is that I was using the Amazon phone app to scan barcodes to see if an item was worth selling. This is way faster than punching in the barcode manually and because it's portable, I thought this could be a good way to check an item found at a thrift shop or garage sale to see it it was worth buying to sell on Amazon.

While I was doing this, the app accidentally scanned the cover of a fitness magazine in the background. It came up as listed on Amazon for about $25.00. This issue was from 2011! I don't know if there is actually a market for these as there was only one person selling them but who knows?

Anyway, thanks again!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on August 28, 2016, 03:40:39 PM
Thanks for posting this Cwadda!

I'd been gathering stuff for a garage sale that I didn't want to bother with listing on Craigslist but I think I can get better prices on Amazon.

A couple of things I wanted to add:

There were a couple of items that Amazon wouldn't let me list unless I had a commercial account.
One was a cookie press and the other was a charging port for an iPod shuffle. Both times it said I wasn't authorized to list the brand.

The other thing (two things actually) is that I was using the Amazon phone app to scan barcodes to see if an item was worth selling. This is way faster than punching in the barcode manually and because it's portable, I thought this could be a good way to check an item found at a thrift shop or garage sale to see it it was worth buying to sell on Amazon.

While I was doing this, the app accidentally scanned the cover of a fitness magazine in the background. It came up as listed on Amazon for about $25.00. This issue was from 2011! I don't know if there is actually a market for these as there was only one person selling them but who knows?

Anyway, thanks again!

Hi, thanks for sharing that information. Some items you might need a professional account but I come across those pretty rarely. I have found some items that needed approval first and that was a relatively simple process.

I'm definitely going to grab that app and try it out. Thanks.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on September 14, 2016, 10:54:36 AM
Posting to check in.

Someone bought a textbook from me and I ended up reaching out to the buyer. Now they're a client for my company. What a coincidence. Lol

Excelsior!
Cwadda
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on September 14, 2016, 11:35:15 AM
Transferred all images over to Imgur. It's just a lot better than tinypic.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: ender on September 14, 2016, 05:47:02 PM
Hm, every time I see this bumped I wonder if I should look into it since I posted before... I have a variety of misc and older electronic stuff right now that might be useful to sell.


Maybe when I get a chance I'll give it a go.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on October 04, 2016, 10:12:52 AM
Hi Folks,

Wanted to give everyone a bit of an update and that is I've basically run out of inventory! I've got a few sub $5 items left for sale and a few older books but really I've gotten rid of quite a few things that I

a) was never going to use again and;
b) never expected to sell

Best of luck and I'm always happy to answer questions!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Lis on October 04, 2016, 12:01:09 PM
Posting to follow. When I moved I sent a box of books in and promptly forgot about them, so every once in a while I get an email from Amazon Seller Central saying "we're sending $X you're way!" Most of them were old college text books so they mostly sold in August/September, but I still get the occasional email. I actually bought a box of books off a stranger on Craigslist since some of the titles he posted I checked and were profitable, but unfortunately I haven't had the time or energy (or, let's be real, I've been lazy) to go through it and get it sent out. It doesn't take that long at all and I keep telling myself to get my butt in gear and just send them in.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: CloserToFree on October 11, 2016, 05:40:59 PM
Following this post and folks' experiences -- haven't tried yet but looking forward to doing this.  Thanks for posting!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Lis on October 12, 2016, 07:04:29 AM
FYI - if you haven't already made an account and had a first sale before 9/19, you won't be able to set up an account until after the holidays (I think 12/19 officially). Q4 is Amazon's craziest times (for obvious reasons) and they don't want to focus on new accounts until the crazy season is over.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: misshathaway on October 13, 2016, 06:53:15 AM
Wanted to post to thank OP for taking the time to post all of this information and continue to update it. Right now I only sell on eBay but this thread has pointed out a new option. Thanks!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: mskyle on October 24, 2016, 02:07:00 PM
I've sold a lot of my books, CDs, DVDs, etc., and older electronics via Amazon over the years, but had kind of forgotten about it for a while. This thread prompted me to sell our old router a month or two ago (upgraded to an extra leftover router from BFs work).

The other day while I was putting some travel stuff away I noticed I had nice folding maps of cities in England and Ireland - not something I will likely use again because nowadays I just use my phone for city navigation. I checked Amazon to see what they were going for and they were priced well above what I paid for them new! So I put them right up and just sold the London map for $30. Ka-ching! Not bad for something that was just sitting in a binder (and it will fit in a business envelope so I'll make money on the shipping)!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cannot Wait! on October 26, 2016, 08:58:26 AM
Hi Folks,

Wanted to give everyone a bit of an update and that is I've basically run out of inventory! I've got a few sub $5 items left for sale and a few older books but really I've gotten rid of quite a few things that I

a) was never going to use again and;
b) never expected to sell

Best of luck and I'm always happy to answer questions!

Hi Cwadda, thanks for all the great info!  Do you follow  $10-ar-a-time's journal?

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/$10-at-a-time/msg540272/#msg540272

It looks like she goes shopping with her Barcode app to find things on clearance that she knows she can sell at a profit.  If you like shopping, this could be a great side gig for you.
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on October 28, 2016, 08:33:43 AM
I've sold a lot of my books, CDs, DVDs, etc., and older electronics via Amazon over the years, but had kind of forgotten about it for a while. This thread prompted me to sell our old router a month or two ago (upgraded to an extra leftover router from BFs work).

The other day while I was putting some travel stuff away I noticed I had nice folding maps of cities in England and Ireland - not something I will likely use again because nowadays I just use my phone for city navigation. I checked Amazon to see what they were going for and they were priced well above what I paid for them new! So I put them right up and just sold the London map for $30. Ka-ching! Not bad for something that was just sitting in a binder (and it will fit in a business envelope so I'll make money on the shipping)!

Great success story! Those are the best finds, when you find out something is worth more than what you originally paid for it.

Hi Folks,

Wanted to give everyone a bit of an update and that is I've basically run out of inventory! I've got a few sub $5 items left for sale and a few older books but really I've gotten rid of quite a few things that I

a) was never going to use again and;
b) never expected to sell

Best of luck and I'm always happy to answer questions!

Hi Cwadda, thanks for all the great info!  Do you follow  $10-ar-a-time's journal?

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/$10-at-a-time/msg540272/#msg540272

It looks like she goes shopping with her Barcode app to find things on clearance that she knows she can sell at a profit.  If you like shopping, this could be a great side gig for you.

I've done something similar but without the barcode scanner. It's something I'd consider investing in for a side hustle. As of right now though I'm buying a house and that's proven to be fairly time consuming :)
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: WootWoot on November 28, 2016, 05:25:21 PM
following!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: jeromedawg on April 27, 2017, 10:48:28 AM
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).
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on April 27, 2017, 11:51:32 AM
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).
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: elysianfields on May 01, 2017, 01:15:02 PM
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
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Cwadda on May 08, 2017, 09:36:28 AM
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!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Lis on May 09, 2017, 02:17:08 PM
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!
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: max9505672 on January 02, 2018, 09:04:11 AM
PTF
Title: Re: Your Guide to Selling on Amazon (side hustle)
Post by: Tobias on January 19, 2018, 02:41:13 PM
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.