Power Sellers Unite

Seller Support · Joined: 14 Aug 2010 Posts: 11

Hi Guys,

As a non featured merchant trying to become featured, I want to get as many sales as I can. Please tell me your opinion which way will get me more sales.

#1 Selling an item at $9.00 with $0.00 for shipping

#2 Selling the same item for $6.50 with $2.50 for shipping

Both have the same total price. Currently I'm set for free shipping on all items, but my "item" price is never the lowest as a result. I think this may be hurting me because when a customer chooses to ignore the buy box and go thru the list, they are clicking a link that says "13 new from $7.99"

Let me know your thoughts, but I think that when they click that link they are specifically looking for the 7.99 price that they found because they think it's the lowest total price, which it isnt. If that 7.99 price is found in the featured merchant list, then they wont bother to go to the regular merchant list "aka , me!".

Free shipping is nice because it looks good, and the customers have to add up less numbers to compare and realize that I'm the lowest seller.

A few days ago, I had a new non featured seller start to list some of my items. His total price is higher than mine, but his item price is lower becuase he charges apx 2.50 for shipping. Suddenly after he showed up next to me, I started getting more sales in those specific items. I think that because his "item" price is the lowest of all listings, that they are seeing his "13 new from xxxx" price. They search all of the listings for the lowest price they saw, and see his listing, and then they see mine above it for a total less price and buy from me.

So I was considering to put back in a shipping cost, and that will lower my item prices so I can be the lowest item price displayed as "13 new from xxxx" Then they will search for my price, and finally see that I am the total lowest price.

Any and all help is appreciated, thanks!

thegolfingdolphin · Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 617

Well since you are willing to look at this through a total price perspective, You have to do your research, if your competitors are at 7.99, the next thing you need to do is look at there feedback percentages. If it is high you need to be at the 7.99 price or lower. Buyers really are not to interested in going through dozens of sellers. Naturally lowest price comes first, then reputation of the seller. If they are already looking at the lowest price section, then they just have to find a seller they are comfortable with.

There really is no other reason to continue looking at slightly higher prices or different sellers unless all the lowest priced sellers are not trustworthy through there feedback.

another benefit of being the lowest price is you will pay less in FVF's whereas you are including your shipping fees in the price and paying FVF's on the shipping total as well.

portocall · Joined: 05 Jun 2009 Posts: 147

Much depends on what you're selling and your shipping costs, also how much Amazon charges for shipping in your category. In books, Amazon collects $3.99 for shipping for USA standard shipping. Amazon takes $1.35 of that as a "fee" and actually gives the seller $2.64 to pay for shipping, packing etc. That's Ok for small books, but larger, heavier items can ship for $4 - 5 dollars Media Mail.

I like the idea of having a set/standard amount for shipping as it's less complicated for the buyer, but $2.64 isn't enough for most books. So, a higher price on the item can help defray the shipping cost.

It's a pain when you list something at Amazon and then a seller comes in and offers a $20.00 book (or whatever item) for 49 cents or a penny, especially if you've made the original listing with photo and description (that the other seller uses to sell their item) How they make their money is beyond me. I once bought a book that was shipped from the UK and I paid little for the book, it actually cost the seller to sell the book to me and yet they still offer similar items for similar prices and shipping.

At the other extreme are Amazon sellers who put outrageous prices on their stuff - and get it!! because they somehow get the buyers who don't care how much they spend. One seller in books has thousands of books listed and the LOWEST price is $290.00 thats Two Hundred and Ninety Dollars!!! That's for a book that I could go to any bookstore right now and buy for $14.99 new. But this guy sells his books - lots of them.

So, having the lowest price isn't always the way to go.

One place where you can stand out from the pack is in your item description - the one you put under condition of item Be as detailed as you can there and that may help. Some buyers will pass up lower priced items if the description just says "speedy delivery" or "100% money back" That really says nothing about the item itself. Condition, color, measurements and other details seem to get better sales I think. Of course it takes more time to list.

I think it's hard to chase the low price sellers, cause I can't sell for those prices anyway. I try to charge what I think the item is worth or what I would pay for it and I do well at Amazon.
:D

Seller Support · Joined: 14 Aug 2010 Posts: 11

Thanks for the replies!

To answer some of your questions. I'm in the toys and games category and all of the sellers that I'm competing with have extremely high feedback. All have 97%-99% positive in the last 12 months. They all have 3000+ feedback more or less. The lowest feedback competitor has around 300.

I didn't know about the final value fees not affecting the shipping prices. I started out with free shipping so I never got to try the regular way :)

The savings on the final value fees could pay for delivery confirmation I suppose.

Some random guy selling normal books for crazy prices is funny, and I can believe that it works to some extent. I'm selling toys and games stuff, so unfortunately I couldn't get away with that :)

For the item description part, I agree that something is better than nothing. I'm usually decently creative with coming up with catchy slogans, but with this part, I'm at a loss for something good. A few thoughts on what I could say are:

1: We appreciate your business and will ship this out quickly for you.
2: Fast Shipping
3: Fast Free Shipping
4: New & Unopened, buy with confidence
5: We carefully pack each and every order and ship them out quickly
6: Let us earn your business!
7: (fill in the blank)

At the moment my main goal is to get featured status asap. I need to crank out as many orders as possible. I have 3 feedback so far, all 100%. No issues what-so-ever. Currently I'm selling things at prices that make me sick to my stomach. That completely sucks. There is no other way to get orders. The problem is that I'm doing everything I can and I'm still not getting a lot of orders. I get around 3-7 orders per week at the moment :(

If I was selling books , id pick the most common ones to sell at first at a loss. However the stuff I'm selling is not very popular and the most typical amazon rank of my listings is about 10,000-50,000. I have a few items that are from 900-3000 but even those aren't selling much at all.

I have come up with a total lower price than the lowest priced featured seller on all items and it still doesn't seem to be enough. Probably because the listings I've chosen are such low traffic that most buyers don't even bother to check the list of all sellers.

Thanks for all of your help and suggestions guys!