Power Sellers Unite

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

Amazon is the most reputable company in the US as judged by their customers.

A study by Reputation Institute in conjunction with with Forbes Media measured respondents’ trust, admiration, esteem and good feeling to form a single score which revealed that Americans have the strongest amount of trust, admiration, respect and good feeling for Amazon.

Amazon moved up from position 21 in 2010 to the number one position this year.

The study included 32,946 responses from online consumers in January and February 2011. Each company in the study received a rating of up to 100 and Amazon scored 82.70, eBay was ranked at number 81 in the study with a score of 67.16.

more.. link to news article

GreyJaguar · Joined: 12 Jul 2008 Posts: 316

I both buy and sell on Amazon. Compared to eBay, imho, Amazon shines in the simplicity of selling and buying. Any issues with a purchase, it is quickly resolved. With eBay, it's time consuming and complicated.

portocall · Joined: 05 Jun 2009 Posts: 157

Remember that many (most) of the changes made by ebay in the past three years have been modeled on what Amazon does. In my humble opinion it's some of the worst of Amazon.

Selling on Amazon for me is becoming more of a pain every day. The fees are outrageous - admittedly the selling price is high enough to usually make up for the higher fees, but, I sometimes question Amazon's commitment to the small seller.

The seller central system of tracking orders, images, etc for sellers has been "officially" down (with an announcement) for two days now. I was experiencing problems (as were others according to the message boards) at least two days prior. It usually takes Amazon two or three days to admit an error.

In the meanwhile 16 (sixteen) of my items were somehow moved from available to unavailable. This happens at least once a month or so at Amazon - but it's usually only 4 or 5 items - not 16. These items CANNOT be relisted and have to be completely listed from scratch. Reports by me to Amazon have gone completely unrecognized and have been marked resolved.

Cataloging at Amazon is A NIGHTMARE The only way I can be sure that my items are even listed, or anywhere near the right category is to check them (hundreds of listings) once a month or so. I sell books and media and the categories that sellers have to choose from DON''T EVEN MATCH the categories that the buyers see. So who moves my items from the category that I choose and the one that they end up in? I recently discovered that the only way to make sure that a book even shows up is to list it in a general category. I pay $40.00 a month in order to be able to upload my own images and to write my own descriptions. I use the stock image and description if they're available. Right now there are over 30 of my items that are "incomplete" according to Amazon, that I personally took the time to write out descriptions and include a scanned image that I made. Either Amazon has lost them or have let other sellers come in and take the descriptions. Another 'glitch" I've reported (and got no reponse) is that my original item is "blown out" of the listing and other sellers items replace mine.

I recently had the displeasure of discussing a transaction (refund) with an Amazon employee. They called me right back, after I finally found the tiny little phone number hidden on a back screen. The woman was arrogant and frankly "snotty" I explained the situation and exactly what had happened, she claimed it was impossible and that I had used the wrong screen and wrong button to make the refund and so the system couldn't pick it up. I explained that I thought that their system had a major hole in it and was functioning incorrectly if a seller could hit the "wrong" button and the system wouldn't recognize it. Again she blamed me and had no idea what to do about it. I asked for the telephone number of the department that handles the issue - they "don't have phone service at this time" Hmmmmmm Ebay's customer service is terrible, but my experience with Amazon is that they don't care, maybe cause they don't have to - they're number 1.

I've boycotted ebay for over two years now and Amazon helped to fill the financial void for me during that time. I'm now reevaluating the decision to sell there much longer.

The survey of buyers is gonna show good marks for Amazon because buers don't see most of the glitches (Amazon is Far, Far, Far and away the glitchiest site I sell on (ebay, blujay, ecrater, artfire) FAR, FAR, FAR and away. Buyers also don't realize (probably) that the searches are manipulated with Amazon's and large sellers stuff up front, and sometimes many items not even turning up in search (that should)

Just had to vent and let those who are considering selling at Amazon that it is not perfect by any means.

Be aware. 8)

gementia13 · Joined: 19 Sep 2008 Posts: 50

Amazon is the WORST. I tried their store deal for a 30-day free trial. To list an item on Amazon is to wander unaided through the strangest maze of irrelevant and inapplicable information, entering something in a field here & there and hoping beyond hope that your item will somehow end up in the proper place, waiting forever for pages to load, only to find that there is an unexplained "error" or "warning" that you don't understand, can't find & don't know what to do about.

Ask customer service? WHAT customer service? I got two email responses in Amazonese from the same woman saying things I didn't understand any more than I understood the errors & warnings.

I'm no slouch, now - I've listed on several different sites, I graduated from college summa cum laude and have a documented near-genius IQ of 135. I wasn't confused because I'm stupid. I was confused because Amazon is a universe unto itself and you can't get in unless you know the lingo - and you can't learn the lingo unless you get in.

Help pages? Where? If there were help pages that were of any use, people wouldn't be (successfully) selling books called, "How to Sell on Amazon" for $49.95.

I thought Amazon would be the answer after I quit eBay. It was nothing of the kind. The free trial was 15 days of chaos and frustration, supplemented by aggravation and despair.

Oh, and when I cancelled my "free" trial after 15 days... they tried to BILL ME for it.

You can have Amazon. I won't be needing it.

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

I haven't sold anyting on Amazon in a long time but enjoy shopping on their site. The last 3-4 times I've shopped online I go to Amazon FIRST to compare prices. :D
If not available on Amazon (which is rare) then I prowl on over to ebay.

Digmen1 · Joined: 12 Feb 2010 Posts: 1007

That says it all

Amazon no 1
Ebay in at 81

I still don't want to sell on Amazon though.

How is the turn around coming on JD ?

eBayEXPAT · Joined: 25 Apr 2011 Posts: 96

Digmen1 wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")That says it all

Amazon no 1
Ebay in at 81

I still don't want to sell on Amazon though.

How is the turn around coming on JD ?Go to yahoo finance , do a 5-year comparason of eBay vs Amazon stock prices , eBay is PATHETIC, JD should be sent back to walmart (as a greeter )

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

portocall & gementia13, thanks for comment about your Amazon test. It looks for sellers can a good profit, but if it lacks in support and not control of posting items can be a headache. I prefer to receive answer from Google's Bot. :lol:

As a buyer. I know a lot of people that used it to buy, but I never tried it in all this years in Internet.

quicksrt · Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 401

Amazon was my personal savoir last summer. I spend days and weeks loading up Half.com with CDs and Ecrater with LPs thinking it would all work out fine if I could just a few hundred more items up.

After 6 of 7 weeks of one sale every other week, I was in a panic and thought that just maybe my stock is just all dead titles.

I thought it out and decided to give amazon a try with the CDs that were sitting at half doing nothing.

To my amazement and relief my sales took off very strong with hundreds $$$ coming in weekly. It stayed that good for 10 months.

Thank god for Amazon when ebay got bad, half died, and Ecrater has not yet caught it's stride just yet.

I would not have gotten through last year with bills paid. I'd sell at Amazon any day. Thank you god and amazon, you saved me.

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

Related:

"Amazon's Focus on Customer Is the Key to High Growth Rates"

In listening to eBay and Amazon.com executives last week during first-quarter earnings calls and eBay's annual shareholders meeting, I was struck by a difference in how the two management teams look at pricing. eBay discusses high Average Selling Price (ASPs), while Amazon focuses on low prices for customers.

When Amazon.com CFO Thomas Szkutak presented Q1 earnings, he said: "We're grateful to our customers who also continue to take advantage of our low prices, vast selection and shipping offers," and he mentioned that theme several times. Even when answering an analyst's question about Amazon.com's advertising business, he said: "we think it allows us over time to have another way to have great low prices for customers."

more.. link to news article

quicksrt · Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 401

well, if ebay is after higher prices for their items, they have succeeded.

The prices for things there at ebay are sky high!

With each raise in fees, higher prices for ebay items has been the result.

It looks like a bunch of noise from these sellers who are upset at ebay as they just keep digging at the sellers with raises, and wording it like it's a great discount.

But in the end, it's higher prices for the buyer plain and simple. See ebay thought we get all of ouR items to sell for free anyway - out of basements, or attics. Yet they treat those sellers like dirt, the ones selling older used items. And most of us do not get our items for free, that was true for the first 4 years of ebay - when you could find old stuff around to sell. hat junk is long gone/sold.

Amazon sets up the item page so that sellers compete right there on one listing for lower prices. Amazon shows each seller and what they are asking, and what their condition is.

It is really weird to see ebay chasing Amazon feature by feature, step by step. They must feel out gunned over their at the bay. I know that them having to offer 50 free listings a month is not doing their bottom line any good. But they had to do it, they had no choice as listings of nicer items was falling like a rock.

cohibastore.com · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 4908

I hate to partially cross post but some of my points are pertinent to this thread

"And you've heard that Amazon is possibly better...Except its all a myth"

"For important issues, customer service is powerless, unable or unwilling to stop rogue sellers from altering catalog items, and utterly unwilling to correct them once they've been butchered."

"eBay favoring big sellers? Yup, same deal at Amazon."

"scam sellers on eBay? Yep, they've moved in too."

"(Amazon) buyers don't understand the difference between product review and seller feedback. Feedback abuse is rampant and too many buyers lie to trust any of them. Amazon may have the upper hand in reputation, but they have not matured much in dealing with these compelling issues which drove buyers away from ebay."

Amazon is the next ebay, but in all the wrong ways.

CS

houstonexpat · Joined: 24 Feb 2011 Posts: 60 Location: USA

Wearing my sellers hat, I do prefer the listing process to eBay. But thats only if you can find your identical product already uploaded.

Also to many lock outs for me, once we tried to get into the automotive category and on review they said I needed to work on photos. Strange as did not submit any pics when applied so they must just look at your site and reply. The annoying thing was I knew they wanted white hero shots so would of only used hero shots when listing but they nether asked.

They get top marks in this report, but its the sellers again that make the company. I know FBA is huge now but its all about the sellers performing