Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[newbie77]

4 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Time to have someone here act as the BrickPicker.com Amazon selling agent. We all send our inventory to that person, who sells it on Amazon, takes a 1% cut of the profits and funnels the rest back to whoever supplied the stock Sort of a FBBP.

it has to be more than 1% all the hassle of prepping inventory + keeping track of etc...

[Phil B]

Just now, newbie77 said:

it has to be more than 1% all the hassle of prepping inventory + keeping track of etc...

Name your price

[asharerin]

People sell their amazon selling accounts. Not legit, but it works until it doesn't.

[Bold-Arrow]

6 minutes ago, asharerin said:

People sell their amazon selling accounts. Not legit, but it works until it doesn't.

And then u can forget about even selling on Amazon ever again . Them folks don't mess around . 

[weitzel78]

14 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Somebody here reported they bought that, only to get 1 step further and being asked for the $1k and the invoices, as @Asharerin said.

What counts as an invoice? I bought all my sets at retail, you just get a receipt.

[Bold-Arrow]

2 minutes ago, weitzel78 said:

What counts as an invoice? I bought all my sets at retail, you just get a receipt.

An invoice would be granted from the manufacturer or an authorized distributor showing your account number with said business , you  business name, quantity ordered , ect.... ( pricing not required). Retail receipts are no longer accepted by Amazon . 

[KShine]

Didn't I read somewhere that the invoice needs to be within 180 days? And that you need permission from LEGO?

Edited August 29, 2016 by KShine

[weitzel78]

3 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

An invoice would be granted from the manufacturer or an authorized distributor showing your account number with said business , you  business name, quantity ordered , ect.... ( pricing not required). Retail receipts are no longer accepted by Amazon . 

So does each item need an invoice, or can you just do that for some of the item? What lego distributors are out there to purchase from?

[redcell]

35 minutes ago, Undercover Boss said:

It's Lego.  The worst part is that I hit the summer clearance heavy in preparation for 4 qt, over $20k deep.  I have been selling Lego for the last three years and was only inactive for 1 month for vacation. Now I am on the wrong side of the gate. 

That's weird.  Would you mind posting what some of those 5% of sets are that you can still list?  I completely understand if you don't want to, but it's weird that the brand restriction isn't covering 100% of the Lego sets that you have.  Sucks that you had just dropped so much on clearance inventory over the summer.  You may still be able to return it.  

[Bold-Arrow]

5 minutes ago, weitzel78 said:

So does each item need an invoice, or can you just do that for some of the item? What lego distributors are out there to purchase from?

I think u need to show atleast 10 units of every item ( that's what I got when I tried to list the obi set ) .

as far as the second part goes, unless you have a BM, I think it is pretty hard to find one 

[redcell]

14 minutes ago, weitzel78 said:

What counts as an invoice? I bought all my sets at retail, you just get a receipt.

That won't cut it.  It has to be an invoice from an authorized distributor or manufacturer.  The problem with Lego is that there are no authorized distributors and Lego has very tight limits on who it will sell to directly.  Basically, if you aren't on the right side of the gate at the moment, the chances of ever getting there are slim to none.  For those of us on the right side of the gate, there is no guarantee that we'll be able to stay there based on whatever metrics Amazon used to make those determinations up to now.

[brickelements]

Unfortunately I have not read every post in this thread so this may be out of line.

 

I wonder if the gating restrictions have anything to do with sets that are still currently available.  Lego may be telling Amazon to ease the competition by restricting sales on sets currently in production?

Granted 75916 was on the list....Could be on the gated list because Jurassic World Sets are still available at retailers.

 

Just wild theory....probably has not much to do with anything.

[Phil B]

Has anyone tried using LEGO Education products to get past the gate? They send you an invoice when you purchase, with LEGO Education on it. It has a customer number and all.

[weitzel78]

Sounds like I'm not going to be sell on Amazon. Really sucks, considering I would not have bought a lot of my current inventory knowing this before hand. Really would not have bought as much clearance sets, as I don't want to deal with them on eBay/CL.

[Migration]

15 minutes ago, weitzel78 said:

Sounds like I'm not going to be sell on Amazon. Really sucks, considering I would not have bought a lot of my current inventory knowing this before hand. Really would not have bought as much clearance sets, as I don't want to deal with them on eBay/CL.

Nothing wrong with selling on eBay, many here have been doing it for years, and doing so in volume. No different than self fulfilling on Amazon really. Yes, you will need to pack each box yourself, but it's really not that difficult.

[newbie77]

20 minutes ago, brickelements said:

Unfortunately I have not read every post in this thread so this may be out of line.

 

I wonder if the gating restrictions have anything to do with sets that are still currently available.  Lego may be telling Amazon to ease the competition by restricting sales on sets currently in production?

Granted 75916 was on the list....Could be on the gated list because Jurassic World Sets are still available at retailers.

 

Just wild theory....probably has not much to do with anything.

why was 75917, 75918, 75915 and 75919 on the list. they are all JW sets as well... still available from all retailers.

[redcell]

Just now, Migration said:

Nothing wrong with selling on eBay, many here have been doing it for years, and doing so in volume. No different than self fulfilling on Amazon really. Yes, you will need to pack each box yourself, but it's really not that difficult.

After this move by Amazon, the competition to sell on Ebay is going to be a lot more heated.

[Darth_Raichu]

1 minute ago, redcell said:

After this move by Amazon, the competition to sell on Ebay is going to be a lot more heated.

I'd like to see how FBA sellers fare on eBay.  Packing 50 items to send to 3-4 distribution centers is much different than packing 50 items to send to 50 different destinations

 

[Migration]

Just now, redcell said:

After this move by Amazon, the competition to sell on Ebay is going to be a lot more heated.

I don't think it will be much different. You will still have auctions selling for less than BINs just like always. What's going to happen is people with no eBay/Amazon experience are gonna mess up, lose their accounts and then have to find some other way to move large amounts of product. Otherwise known as a buying opportunity. It's been said many times and ignored by almost everyone, "Buying is the easy part, Selling is difficult." Before you go all in on a buying spree test the waters a bit and try selling something online, not doing so is just asking for problems.

[Darth_Raichu]

2 minutes ago, Migration said:

"Buying is the easy part, Selling FOR PROFIT is difficult."

Fixed that a bit for you

[asharerin]

29 minutes ago, brickelements said:

Unfortunately I have not read every post in this thread so this may be out of line.

 

I wonder if the gating restrictions have anything to do with sets that are still currently available.  Lego may be telling Amazon to ease the competition by restricting sales on sets currently in production?

Granted 75916 was on the list....Could be on the gated list because Jurassic World Sets are still available at retailers.

 

Just wild theory....probably has not much to do with anything.

This had nothing to do with Lego. The gate was put in place by Amazon. Lego is not special, Amazon has gated hundreds of brands the past 2 years and the list will keep growing. In the very small world of Lego reselling it may feel like a conspiracy against just you, but take a step back and you will see the much broader picture and the direction Amazon is going.

[exciter1]

5 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

I'd like to see how FBA sellers fare on eBay.  Packing 50 items to send to 3-4 distribution centers is much different than packing 50 items to send to 50 different destinations

 

It ain't fun, believe me.
 

[sunkenbrick]

42 minutes ago, weitzel78 said:

Sounds like I'm not going to be sell on Amazon. Really sucks, considering I would not have bought a lot of my current inventory knowing this before hand. Really would not have bought as much clearance sets, as I don't want to deal with them on eBay/CL.

The thing is.. no one knew these restrictions were going to be implemented. If you go back and read the messages when the gate was first reported you can see even veteran sellers were caught off guard. Now, the risk/reward % have changed dramatically  but it doesn't mean you can't sell your stuff it simply means it will take more time to sell it or you have to take less profit. If you want to get out of the game you can do so by doing returns (difficult when you have a large volume of items), sell as bulk, sell as sets, or you can simply try to get ride of the ones you don't like and keep the most valuable ones for long term investment. 

Edited August 29, 2016 by sunkenbrick
typo

[redcell]

7 minutes ago, Migration said:

I don't think it will be much different. You will still have auctions selling for less than BINs just like always. 

But, you will have many many more of them as sellers who are shut out at Amazon work to sell off their inventory.  It will create buying opportunities for sure.

[asharerin]

3 minutes ago, redcell said:

But, you will have many many more of them as sellers who are shut out at Amazon work to sell off their inventory.  It will create buying opportunities for sure.

I have decided not to mess with buying from ebay sellers to resell on Amazon. I wan't this ride to last as long as possible so I am only going to send into Amazon what I have bought directly from authorized retailers. All it is going to take is a few complaints about fraud or minifigs missing and you are toast on Amazon. Not going to send in items from retail shelves either, just online, and only after inspecting seals and weighing everything.