How to profit from postage when selling on Amazon…

By Sharon Fussell, September 30, 2015

A key continuous component of selling on Amazon is having to deal with the subject of postage.

Amazon charge the buyer £2.80 on each sale per item, of which they take commission. Thus, in most cases, if you relay on postage costs to make a profit on your books, you will likely be disappointed.

For DVDs and CDs the situation is even worse!

So what can you do to ensure you can manage to cover postage cost and make a profit?

You need to ensure your prices take into account postage costs. Always calculate this and price accordingly. Unless you are a Pro-Merchant, selling 1p books is just not profitable. Even if you are a Pro-Merchant, anything over 500g and anything classed as large letter is not great in regards to profit.

To ensure you are aware of current postage costs, I recommend you collect a price leaflet from your local Post Office.

 
There are alternatives to Royal Mail: using couriers is more commonplace now and you can often post items cheaper than using Royal Mail, so it’s good to shop around.

When listing items, do ensure you only send books overseas if you have worked out the actual postage: Amazon’s postage credit is not very generous – even before they take a wedge of commission!

One way you can make money on postage is if you sell two or more items in one order. Thus, if yours items are being dispatched to the same address, you can double up the products. If the weight is under 2kg you will pay the same as if you were posting one item, which improves the profit angle somewhat.

Ensure that when you post your items you request a proof of postage: should your item get lost in the post you will be able to claim the loss from Royal Mail.

 

Until next week!
TESTING TESTING

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