Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[labfreak7]

To each his own, but FBA was a game changer for men. It has plenty of headaches and stress ( what doesn't at a high volume ) but it is worth it . 

What about women?

[Bold-Arrow]

What about women?

the lady boss tells me what to do . So it goes without saying 

Edited October 9, 2015 by Bold-Arrow

[Guest]

Keep believing that for as long as you can.

Yeah that has already been my experience in the 5 years I have been selling on ebay. Never had one issue they refused to work with me on.

[asharerin]

Just so you are aware, there is a return limit to Amazon before you get banned. The exact number is unknown but I have heard it is around 50.

The bots go off your percentage of returns rather than a hard number. You can be banned as a buyer for alot less than 50 returns if your return rate is past their current limit on your recent purchases.

[I am Niko]

Does anyone know what the deal is when the buyer's contact name and the shipping name aren't the same?  I just got a new Marketplace order where the two names are completely different.  If I recall correctly, when AMZ says ship now, I really have no choice, correct?

[Jackson]

Does anyone know what the deal is when the buyer's contact name and the shipping name aren't the same?  I just got a new Marketplace order where the two names are completely different.  If I recall correctly, when AMZ says ship now, I really have no choice, correct?

Could be a gift order or a dropship order.  Both happen quite a bit.

[zskid00]

So about these seller contact response metrics.  How do you guys handle messages through Amazon?  I have come to find that my metrics are not good here, but that is because Amazon is faulting me for not responding to final messages in a chain of e-mails that no longer require a response.  Do I always have to be the last one to respond to an inquiry regardless of how many messages go back and forth?  Do you guys just respond with a generic "thank you" to try to end the chain?  Will Amazon suspend my account for being sub-par on this metric only?

[cladner]

5 minutes ago, zskid00 said:

So about these seller contact response metrics.  How do you guys handle messages through Amazon?  I have come to find that my metrics are not good here, but that is because Amazon is faulting me for not responding to final messages in a chain of e-mails that no longer require a response.  Do I always have to be the last one to respond to an inquiry regardless of how many messages go back and forth?  Do you guys just respond with a generic "thank you" to try to end the chain?  Will Amazon suspend my account for being sub-par on this metric only?

there is the "no response required" button you check  to end the chain.

[Bold-Arrow]

You need to reply in some way or the other. If the issue at hand is closed, but you still have an open message thread, all you have to do is mark as " no response needed ". There is a check box for that . And that's that .

keep in mind that Amazon keep track of those , so only use that once all relevant communication is done or you receive a suspicious message . 

[zskid00]

Thank you both.  

[jeff_14]

I missed the 25 sales quota for September and October to sell toys on Amazon during the holidays. I was off by 8 so it's not like I miscounted or was pretty close. So I have begun transitioning to ebay and other sites. I just now got confirmation of the sale of a lego polybag I had listed on Amazon. Am I missing something here? 

[fossilrock]

They don't remove sellers that did not qualify until the 17th of this month.  So you're still good for 12 more days.

[jeff_14]

Coolio. Nice surprise. Here's to people doing their shopping early.  :)

[DadsAFOL]

Anybody look at the new "customer satisfaction" metric?  I looked at mine and i'm at 100% dissatisfied because some yahoo who asked to cancel an order, marked my response telling them that we cancelled for them no problem as "not helpful".

 

[exciter1]

10 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

Anybody look at the new "customer satisfaction" metric?  I looked at mine and i'm at 100% dissatisfied because some yahoo who asked to cancel an order, marked my response telling them that we cancelled for them no problem as "not helpful".

 

Not overall, but my rating did go down, since one buyer received a crushed Delorean recently.  They said the shipping box was fine, but the LEGO box was crushed. Thanks Amazon!

[Miami Bomb Squad]

That CS matrix measurement scale on Amazon is my biggest pet peeve.
On Ebay, you don't have to answer any stupid questions.  IE>  "how come this set is so expensive?"
Also, If the customer cancels before you ship out, it also hit you negatively.  

[I am Niko]

1 hour ago, DadsAFOL said:

Anybody look at the new "customer satisfaction" metric?  I looked at mine and i'm at 100% dissatisfied because some yahoo who asked to cancel an order, marked my response telling them that we cancelled for them no problem as "not helpful".

 

Yup, I'm at 100% dissatisfied because someone bought 4 of the same minifig from me, and asked if I could ship them together.  I told them I could, but unfortunately couldn't discount the shipping, because it was part of the item price (very cheap base cost plus $4.99 shipping).  I also offered to cancel their order if they didn't feel comfortable with that.  Didn't hear back and shipped via 2-day delivery, despite having a shipping estimate weeks later, and they still marked it as not helpful.

[DadsAFOL]

Yeah, that's my peeve too.  I understand holding sellers responsible to reply within 24 hours, but when you need the customer to respond, good luck.  I'm sure I have a few future returns for people placing duplicate orders.  But if they don't reply with a cancel request, you have no choice but to ship something you know that won't end well.

[HappyHawkeye]

On 11/5/2015, 9:53:28, fossilrock said:

They don't remove sellers that did not qualify until the 17th of this month.  So you're still good for 12 more days.

I know there's probably no good way to predict this - but how many sellers do you guys think will be culled when this happens? For example right now there are ~170 sellers for JW Indominus Rex right now. Do you think that will get something like a 30% reduction or is that too optimistic? A quick glance at the seller ratings makes it looks like a number of those sellers have pretty high volume, but I also know that the number of sellers has doubled in the past month or so, so there's got to be quite a few of newbies too. Trying to figure out how aggressively to price some items right now vs. waiting for the # of sellers to drop. In case you can't tell this is my first Xmas doing this

[Bold-Arrow]

The drop in sellers wasn't significant last year . 

[redcell]

4 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

The drop in sellers wasn't significant last year . 

And the sellers that get dropped aren't the ones that you need to worry about...it's the sellers who have lower prices and are sitting on hundreds of copies of a set.  They've already qualified for holiday selling and have to work through their inventory before prices will start to rise.

[Darth_Raichu]

1 hour ago, HappyHawkeye said:

I know there's probably no good way to predict this - but how many sellers do you guys think will be culled when this happens? For example right now there are ~170 sellers for JW Indominus Rex right now. Do you think that will get something like a 30% reduction or is that too optimistic? A quick glance at the seller ratings makes it looks like a number of those sellers have pretty high volume, but I also know that the number of sellers has doubled in the past month or so, so there's got to be quite a few of newbies too. Trying to figure out how aggressively to price some items right now vs. waiting for the # of sellers to drop. In case you can't tell this is my first Xmas doing this

Minimal.  I can simply sign up for FBA and continue selling. 

[fossilrock]

Had my first real issue with amazon today, and I was wondering if anyone else had this happen to them before.  Seems that someone switched a product listing to something else, and I didn't catch it in time, and then a buyer purchased my item.  Since I can't authorize the change, I called amazon, and now i'm stuck in a lull with this order for at least 24 hours.

Those of us that like to bundle products, just be warned, that it seems like it's a very dangerous territory to venture into.  It's not like ebay where only you control your title, and product listing.

Got to admit, I don't like that anyone can switch titles to something else entirely.  It can screw all the resellers on the item... i'm taking it someone did this heinously, but hopefully amazon clears it out and it doesn't ding my account.
 

Edited November 17, 2015 by fossilrock

[Bold-Arrow]

4 minutes ago, fossilrock said:

Had my first real issue with amazon, and I was wondering if anyone else had this happen to them before.  Seems that someone switched a product listing to something else, and I didn't catch it in time, and then a buyer purchased my item.  Since I can't authorize the change, I called amazon, and now i'm stuck in a lull with this order for at least 24 hours.

Got to admit, I don't like that anyone can switch titles to something else entirely.  It can screw all the resellers on the item... i'm taking it someone did this heinously.
 

Open a case and mark it urgent . Ask that order is cancelled ASAP as the costumer is going to recieve the wrong item .

once it is cancelled , reach out to customer with an apology ( this is not a must).

if it ships out , contact customer ASAP. 

[fossilrock]

4 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Open a case and mark it urgent . Ask that order is cancelled ASAP as the costumer is going to recieve the wrong item .

once it is cancelled , reach out to customer with an apology ( this is not a must).

if it ships out , contact customer ASAP. 

Thanks. I called Amazon and they had to escalate it to another department.  Luckily, I didn't use FBA for this but the fulfillment is through me.  Regardless, I don't want to get dinged for this, as I have a perfect record so far on amazon, and this wasn't my doing.