How to profit from Amazon’s mega-sellers…

By Sharon Fussell, April 11, 2014

 

One of my mother’s favourite sayings was: ‘What goes around, comes around’.

I too find myself repeating this saying more and more as  I get older.

For example, I notice currently so many fashion garments are replicas of clothes I wore 30–40 odd years ago as a teenager.

I also remember my mum saying: ‘I used to wear clothes like that when I was a girl’, when fashions centred on her era of the 40s and 50s. I also find myself repeating another of her sayings: ‘ there is nothing new under the sun’.

So perhaps its true that wisdom, it seems, does come with age!

I know that in business you are unable to stand still: business has to evolve – you need to ensure that when market situations change, you adapt and change with it. If you don’t, your business may well suffer adversely.

None of us really like change: it’s often scary and daunting to be pushed out of comfort zones…

This last week, we have had to recognise that there is an elephant in the room: we have to except that online book selling has changed since we started years ago.

There are quite a few reasons for this, which include…

The advent of Kindle and other ereaders – with the rise of ebooks, fewer people consider buying hard-copy books.

Mega-sellers increasingly devaluing book prices – these large online book selling companies hoover up books from charity shops by the ton, creating gluts in all but the most rare of books, and creating a climate of low pricing that is more and more difficult for small sellers to compete with.

Royal Mail increasing postage prices significantly – a price increase by 10p or 20p per item can often mean the difference between profit and loss. (Mega-sellers are not really affected by Royal Mail increases, as they have agreements where they pay very low prices for books under 2kg in weight.)

Amazon’s £10 minimum spend has definitely impacted on FBA sales – at first this was not so apparent, but as time has passed, a drop in FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) sales has been detected.

Amazon’s reluctance to increase the postage credit up from £2.80 – despite increased Royal Mail postage charges, Amazon’s allowance on what you charge for posting hasn’t shifted, meaning that smaller sellers have less of a chance of making a buck or two.

So, does all above mean there is no value in online selling any longer? Has my love affair with Amazon come to an end after so many years?

The answer to above is ‘Not at all’, but it does mean market changes have to reflect current and future business strategies.

So in the spirit of ‘what goes around comes around’ and ‘there is nothing new under the sun’, this week, I have been looking to go back to methods of selling that I used 10 years ago…

Some conditions have improved in aspects of selling that for years we have dismissed.

It’s too early to give statistical evidence of success, but keep a look out, because rest assured, once I discover new and successful ways and means of selling books online, I will share this information with you.

In fact, one way that I have found success is to ‘get back’ at mega-sellers’ strategies to sell good quality books for such low prices that most other books sellers are being forced from profitably selling on Amazon.

Using my new programme Copy Paste Profit I ‘secretly’ use mega-sellers to fulfil orders to my customers.

For example, I sold a book – not on Amazon – for £6: after seller’s fees and purchasing the book, which incidentally included postage and packaging for only £1.75, I cleared over £3 in net profit.

I happen to know that if I had tried to post that book myself using Royal Mail, it would cost over £2.80 plus packaging, plus the book cost and the cost and inconvenience of travelling to the Post Office to post it.

Instead, from the comfort of my sofa, I was able to fulfil the order working 100% online. Thus avoiding spending time wrapping books and going out in the rain to get to the Post Office before it shut for the day.

Someone else on my behalf sent my order to my customer, and they were totally oblivious of doing this, which does not matter a jot, because they probably don’t care: they made a sale and that’s that…

But of course, as they only charged £1.75 for the sale, the person making the larger profit – me – is laughing all the way to the bank!

If you would like to know more about Copy Paste Profit – how you can make money from home with 100% online activity, no trawling around charity shops and car boots, no storing stock, no upfront costs, no going out to Post Offices, no purchasing expensive packaging, all activity from the comfort of your sofa – then do please click on this link.

It will be lovely to have you on board.