Have Amazon cut off one's nose to spite one's face
I know the forums are mostly dead now. And after watching a documentary that included how Ebay deal with orders, forgeries, unscrupulous sellers, etc., I'm beginning to wonder if Amazon have dropped the ball.
I used to buy a lot of my stock/materials on Amazon as it was easy, cheap and reorders were easy. Now I find listings that were once one item are now another. Sellers have gone (even though I understand how the buy button works and you have to check you're buying from the same seller if you want the same product), despite attempts to have only 1 genuine item on each listing (from each seller), each seller can be selling slightly various products. Example - C4 boxes. The difference in tolerance/size, can mean 1 is ok for RM, 1 is not. Prices are double what they were (over say 3 yrs) - yes, inflation is an issue for us all. Over on Ebay meanwhile, prices are only a little higher or the same.
Where I live, there's not much opportunity for buying supplies. So I tend to buy most online. But more and more I'm finding that I use Amazon less and less. Just went to repeat buy something. Same seller, twice the price I paid before an Amz, but the same price as 3 yrs ago on Ebay.
The forums are dead, so not expecting much in the way of replies. Just wanted to 'vent' and say that all the recent changes over the past couple of years have made this a very stressful place to sell. Unfortunately, Ebay just doesn't work for me & my products (selling). Wish it did. But for what I sell, Amazon works - despite the stress and hoops. But buying,... Amazon less and less.
I sell mostly in Handmade. So I don't get as much of the cr*p that some get with fraudulent returns/A-Zs (though I did have a "late delivery, here's a refund, "oh I've just found it - I shall say no more about it"" blatant attempt to get a free item recently), I just wanted to say something and to say to those that get daily grief, it's not you. Maybe one day Amz will realise - not that they make much money out of .co.uk - except from 3rd partly sellers fees, that the forums, the support, the checks and the broken A-Z/checks system just do not work. Yes, new sellers will pile on every day thinking this is heaven, but we all know...
Anyway, off to bed. Just wanted this out my head before I go. If I'm buying less on Amazon, so are others.
Have Amazon cut off one's nose to spite one's face
I know the forums are mostly dead now. And after watching a documentary that included how Ebay deal with orders, forgeries, unscrupulous sellers, etc., I'm beginning to wonder if Amazon have dropped the ball.
I used to buy a lot of my stock/materials on Amazon as it was easy, cheap and reorders were easy. Now I find listings that were once one item are now another. Sellers have gone (even though I understand how the buy button works and you have to check you're buying from the same seller if you want the same product), despite attempts to have only 1 genuine item on each listing (from each seller), each seller can be selling slightly various products. Example - C4 boxes. The difference in tolerance/size, can mean 1 is ok for RM, 1 is not. Prices are double what they were (over say 3 yrs) - yes, inflation is an issue for us all. Over on Ebay meanwhile, prices are only a little higher or the same.
Where I live, there's not much opportunity for buying supplies. So I tend to buy most online. But more and more I'm finding that I use Amazon less and less. Just went to repeat buy something. Same seller, twice the price I paid before an Amz, but the same price as 3 yrs ago on Ebay.
The forums are dead, so not expecting much in the way of replies. Just wanted to 'vent' and say that all the recent changes over the past couple of years have made this a very stressful place to sell. Unfortunately, Ebay just doesn't work for me & my products (selling). Wish it did. But for what I sell, Amazon works - despite the stress and hoops. But buying,... Amazon less and less.
I sell mostly in Handmade. So I don't get as much of the cr*p that some get with fraudulent returns/A-Zs (though I did have a "late delivery, here's a refund, "oh I've just found it - I shall say no more about it"" blatant attempt to get a free item recently), I just wanted to say something and to say to those that get daily grief, it's not you. Maybe one day Amz will realise - not that they make much money out of .co.uk - except from 3rd partly sellers fees, that the forums, the support, the checks and the broken A-Z/checks system just do not work. Yes, new sellers will pile on every day thinking this is heaven, but we all know...
Anyway, off to bed. Just wanted this out my head before I go. If I'm buying less on Amazon, so are others.
14 replies
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
Good to see you here, and agree with everything you say.
I haven't bought anything from Amazon for a long time - at least 2-3 years now. Ebay for me.
Seller_ZQyopdiwkUHOZ
In my experience, even a slight price increase on Ebay results in sales falling to the bottom of a ravine. I'd guess that prices are so low on ebay because sellers can't actually increase them.
I think this is the biggest problem on here, tbh. I'm convinced that Amazon engages in some amount of throttling through search result manipulation to try and keep as many sellers around and invested as possible in order to keep claiming those monthly fees. For Amazon, that's just free money. The associated costs with having extra sellers may as well not exist, so it's much better for them to have the same sales split between 10,000 sellers than between 10.
Seller_5JsPL9OTkAKuR
After a very stressful few weeks with having listings removed, going round in circles with SS and low sales on here as a result, I really wish ebay would work better for us but it doesn't right now.
Can't increase prices as it means no sales even though our prices have increased.
We have no choice but to try SFP again and go through that stress again after coming off it just before pandemic because the stress was not worth it
Seller_TufyJDtetbrlU
Where can i watch this documentary please
Seller_lnQKaZJGTX769
Sellers have had no option on amazon, but to increase prices of items to cover for amazon refund policies to customers, i.e. item that have been signed for. the customer, they say they have not received it. amazon refund the customer. so the customer now has item and full refund. this is happening quite a bit now
Seller_xLwNMCbCJK72d
The selling prices you are seeing rising are due to Amazon fees and carriers postal fees rises throughout the year among other things. As you say the forums have died with a lot of the experienced sellers that provided great advice that refused to go over to the new Forums ( far better than seller support) - probably why its gone pretty much unnoticed the huge rise in fees yesterday (Small and Light fees removed and replaced with Low-Price FBA rates). Yes this may be a faster delivery service but a 40% rise in fees for most of our cheaper SNL items from £1.03 to £1.44 makes our cheaper items expensive. Although this was highlighted a month ago on forums and Amazon notices, there has been no reminders this week that I have seen.
. At the end of the day the extra costs go onto the selling prices meaning customers paying more for items they may not be needing next day . We have had to raise our prices accordingly but some sellers haven't yet realised, therefore they will be cheaper than us and we lose the buy box - so expecting a drop in sales but certainly not selling at a loss.
Seller_nex6aLZ9HPynF
Is this your first post as would normally see you commenting everyday on old forums.
But then the old forums were so much easier to keep up with daily posts.
This one for example has only just appeared Sellers Central home page as one to follow so no idea if you post daily or not anymore.
These new forums as worse than awful.
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
I know many have said that all the recent changes have made it more expensive to sell here. I get it. Hence the title. I've put my own prices up as well. And will do again when the next postage price increase kicks in.
My main issue is that I go to re-order and either the price has shot up (like double) in a few months, or the listing is not the same, or the seller has gone.
But go to Ebay or the likes and the prices are far cheaper for the same product. I no longer just go to my Amazon orders and place a reorder. If the price has shot up, I search elsewhere and almost every time the prices off Amazon are cheaper and still not far off what they were even 2-3yrs ago.
As for myself, my sales may be up, but so are my costs. So my profit is down as there is only so much you can raise prices by before it's too much for the customer.
Seller_HwaQlgFnhSuGS
We used to find eBay did not work for us and we have tried several times.
When the price increases where announced on Amazon we dragged eBay back into life and we are now getting a steady flow of orders with better margins. We sell very low ticket items, so Amazon have hit us hard with forcing us to use Buy Shipping (when we have a franking machine) and now with both the S&L fee increase an postage increase, we have been squeezed even more.
Over on eBay we have found that we can change our postage to 2nd Class and customers seem happy with the extended delivery estimates. This allows us to post for £1.15 on C&D or less on franking - compared with the £1.60 alternative on Amazon. That is a big difference for small items.
From a seller point of view, Amazon have created a class of customers who demand quick+cheap, which no longer works for low price items/former S&L. eBay customers and even Etsy, seem more content with the dates given and I can even save processing time by using C&D instead of buy shipping.
Our local Evri courier says he is delivering far more items from Shien/Temu now than Amazon. Temu will affect Amazon as they are cheap and it may also train customers to accept longer delivery times for lower price. Time will tell.
Seller_Fg2fqaWOnEtha
Same here, I buy nearly everything on eBay with a few exceptions. I even tried to buy from small Shopify sites to help small sellers until one scammed me of £10.
My incense sells on eBay although I have to be creative as the competition is crazy. But I don't sell only incense and the other stuff doesn't sell on eBay at all.
As a seller my favourite is probably Etsy now, easy to list, improving my listings actually makes a difference and the stats are relatively detailed. I like to have some control. I also sell handmade ethnic products, ethical body care and aromatherapy products, print on demand stuff and my own handmade jewellery, keyrings and candles and Etsy is good for that. Mind you, my shop looks like some kind of Hippie Heaven now.
