Top Ten Tips for an Amazon Marketplace Bookseller
My wife and I recently got an online book-selling business up and running, using Amazon Marketplace as our storefront. It has taken a while, but after a year we now have a well-established presence and respectable daily sales. We would like to share our top tips for getting up and running, to help other people to cut down their learning curve. Here are our top ten tips for how to build a successful business as an Amazon Marketplace bookseller.
1. Focus on new books rather than second-hand ones – unless you have highly specialised knowledge you won’t know which books will sell at a vast profit and which will just moulder on your shelves. With new books you can see before you even buy them how high they rank on Amazon’s bestseller lists. We won’t normally buy in books below 10,000th position.
2. Find your niche – the hottest new novels might not give you the best return, as all of the supermarkets are likely to be discounting them heavily and their moment of glory may not last more than a few weeks. But classic children’s books like the Gruffalo and the Hungry Caterpillar are still selling well decades after they were written. And some specialist areas like travel books are not too affected by passing fads.
3. Advertise your store outside of Amazon – for their own purposes Amazon makes it very hard to find your bookstore unless you know the exact internal address. For that reason you need to give it out as far and wide as you can. People won’t just stumble upon it, unless they are looking for the exact books you stock so you will have to make an effort to get your name out there.
4. Pack and send within 24 hours if possible – Customer service, it goes without saying, is what differentiates the serious sellers from the fly by nights. If you are going to be around for the long term you will be dependent upon repeat sales and there is no better way than by exceeding the customer’s delivery expectations.
5. Pack to cope with abuse. Assume that your book has to endure being trampled upon by herds of wildebeest in transit and you won’t go far wrong. Wrap it like it’s a present for a dear relative.
6. Give excessively good customer service when something goes wrong. Invariably some things won’t go smoothly and sometimes it will be your fault. Even if you aren’t entirely to blame, you will get repeat custom and avoid the dreaded negative feedback by apologising quickly and sincerely and offering a partial or full refund.
7. Streamline your mailing process. This will be the biggest timesaver you can implement. If the service is available to you, have your postal service pick up from your house or office, use hand stamps and average weight tariffs and generally do whatever you can to minimise the time you spend on this part of the process.
8. Keep on top of your prices. When your business growth warrants it, you will probably use software for this, but you will see a big difference in your sales if you adjust your prices to get to the top of the list of vendors just before key buying periods such as Sunday afternoons.
9. Have multiple suppliers. Don’t risk your business on one source of new stock, as they can change the rules without consulting you. Keep abreast of where your fellow marketplace vendors are obtaining their books – the users of Amazon vendor forums are very helpful and surprisingly non-competitive in their sharing of information.
10. Think ahead. Boxed sets which are cheap in Springtime might be just what you need for the Christmas present buying season. If space permits, stock up in advance and you can multiply your profits on good gift books three or four-fold.
I hope this has given a flavour of how you can give a boost to your online business. A lot of these tips are relevant whatever the nature of your online business. Good luck in all your endeavours!
Mark and Lourdes run Bookphoria Limited, incorporated in the UK and specialising in children’s books, boxed sets and non-fiction titles. To see our business in action, visit us at the Amazon Marketplace Bookphoria Shop
Processing your request, Please wait....
