posted on July 9, 2000 10:23:47 PM new
Hello people,
Is amazon worth it? A general question, ofcoarse. I have being doing business on E-bay for about 3 years now and I would like to expand to other auctions. I would like to hear from any Veterans on amazon---the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Thanks
Your answer is Yahoo. I have been selling on eBay for 4 years and am a powerseller. On June 1, I moved all my auction to Yahoo and will probably never list on eBay again. Yahoo is free, my items sell faster and for more money, and the site is always up. I have had no trouble with deadbeats.
I also sold on Amazon until they started the z-shops which killed the auctions. I had as many deadbeats as payers on Amazon. I haven't listed there since last fall. It is a waste of time.
posted on July 11, 2000 12:13:01 AM new
At this time I would hesitate to encourage anyone to try to make a living at Amazon. I have done all right there but it is a lot of work and not getting any better. With fewer bidders and higher prices, many Amazon sellers, including myself, are on the lookout for better hunting grounds.
posted on July 13, 2000 08:35:40 AM new
Yahoo, unfortunately, has no controls - deadbeats and crooks seem to run rampart there.
Amazon has priced themselves out of the market, and their good service reps from the past have disappeared.
eBay, in spite of it's ever growing rulebook, still offers the best option for selection.
Remember that whatever service you use, the deals are made between the buyers and sellers, and that's where the majority of problems are going to occur.
posted on July 14, 2000 07:59:06 PM new
I for one love Amazon. My items are suited well for them as I have a constant supply of my items and have them run continually. Depending on the volume of auctions, you can't beat their flat fee of $40 a month, unless of course you use Yahoo. I have been selling on ebay for close to 3 years and just over a year on Amazon. I also just started to list on Yahoo, and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of bids. Collecting may be another story, but it's nice to see bids early in the auction. I would recommend trying the three main sites at least. It's good to spread out a bit and build up some feedback on the various sites. You just might be pleasantly surprised.
posted on July 16, 2000 09:03:46 PM new
I used to be an ebay junkie, I have now basically stopped listing there because it is too expensive, I have about 600 items listed on amazon z-shops and it only costs me $40.00 a month, on ebay it would cost me at least 4,000 dollars to put up my items! This is the way to go if you have alot of items. My sales has slipped in the last month, probably because I have not added new items to my listings. I only have myself to blame for that. I also sell occassionally on ebay, it does somewhat better but costs me a fortune. Yahoo works as well. I don't list there just because I am lazy. I am planning on starting to list there, and improve my amazon listings. Amazon is a mixed bag, right now since they increased the Z shop price from 9.99 to 39.99 I think it will weed out the people who have been taking advantage of them, and flooding the listings...still it is the best deal around, worth the work, because they relist automatically for you every 2 weeks. They are very helpful (you can talk to a rep anytime you want), and they are fairly priced. Ebay doesn't give a rat's a** about anyone and they are only out to make a killing (in my mind), mind you I have been with ebay since the beginning, when you could only list 2 items a day! So I am an old timer. I would still recommend Amazon.
posted on July 16, 2000 11:10:50 PM new
sadly enough I must say that amazon is worth it, the detriments, and lack of bidders is balanced by the price, and the fact that the more product you list, the better your sales become. If you do everything they say, you are supposed to get a sales rate of 10-15% I hear. I am happy with my 2% of total auctions, but intend to change my system to take advantage of some of their new offerings.
posted on July 17, 2000 07:57:25 AM new
"since they increased the Z shop price from 9.99 to 39.99 I think it will weed out the people who have been taking advantage of them, and flooding the listings.."
What? I think it will do just the opposite. The people with 150 auctions or less per month of individual unique auctions are the ones being weeded out. The ones with 1,000's of duplicate auctions will be flooding the listings.
posted on July 17, 2000 10:13:47 AM new
"What? I think it will do just the opposite. The people with 150 auctions or less per month of individual unique auctions are the ones being weeded out. The ones with 1,000's of duplicate auctions will be flooding the listings. "
I disagree with you, I have over 600 unique listings! I do not have any single listing that is the same. Just because the price went up does not mean that the real businesses will leave, I think that will entice them to stay, frankly I am thrilled they raised the price, however insane that sounds. I am sick of people listing power bracelets in ever single catagory they can on Amazon, those people will leave, good ridance...also the people who have 3 accounts will probably descrease them to 1 another good deal as far as I am concerned. Plus Z shop is supposed to be a shop, if a person is not going to have lets say 500 items or more, then they should move to over to auctions which are still .10 cents as far as I know. For quite a while I had only 100 items listed there, because I have not one identical item it was a chore to list, not any harder than ebay mind you, but still, hard work. I finally pushed myself to up my amount of listings. I have 1,000s of items, and I only sell on the net....I could use a staff of 5 for a week and get all the work done and not have to deal with it for a long time, then I could keep up with my production of new items myself. I will hire those 5 people one of these days! Well enough babbling!
posted on July 17, 2000 07:22:12 PM new
I used to sell CDs and Videos on Amazon Auctions and in the Z-Shop and did well.But I found their own stores was hard to compete with as people seemed to go to them first.I'm selling alot on Half.Com now and I love their site.I don't have any of the headaches I had selling on amazon with international bidders, bidding on my auctions with me stating I don't ship internationally.When I didn't get that,I had a ton of dead beats.Happier elsewhere.
posted on July 19, 2000 06:31:53 PM new
I love Amazon itself (my very first Internet purchase and their service is superb), but I had two bad experiences as a buyer on the auction side and I doubt I will EVER use them again as a buyer. Utterly unprofessional sellers-one a real crook who damaged my feedback rating because I called his shoddy service for what it was.
I think eBay and Yahoo have it covered, but who knows?
posted on July 23, 2000 10:23:04 PM new
I'd like to know the same thing, for the same reason. I have great success on eBay, have had several items listed on Amazon and haven't had a HIT much less a bid?????
