Sold on Amazon, Again

It has been a while since I have multiple items sold on Amazon.com in one day. Considering that I now have a very small inventory (only five items before the sell and once at the peak time, I had about 25 items listed), I am very happy to see them on the way to their new owners.

When I checked my email this morning, there were two emails from Amazon payment center, all for cleared transactions for two items I listed in the Amazon marketplace. One is for a notebook card (bought for $5 after $45 MIR and sold for $9.95) and the other is for a USB flash drive (bought for $15.96 after $14 MIR and sold for $33.2). I had very good months of July and August when I sold nearly $600 worth of stuff on Amazon. The sale slowed down dramatically as I cleaned out my closet. Though I will continue to take the buy-and-sell approach (find bargains on internet, buy them and sell them on Amazon), I won't expect anything like in the summer. So far, I have sold $863 worth of stuff (no used, all new), and made a profit of $600. Talking about side-income, this should definitely be counted in.

While I enjoyed the lettle money made from selling books, printers, routers, and flash drives, I can’t help thinking why people buy used stuff or new ones but from seller like me, especially computer hardware and electronics. Aren’t there also very cheap, brand new ones out there? For example, the flash drive I just sold was on Buy.com early this month, with a list price of $39.96 and a rebate of $14. However, for the entire month of October, Buy.com has a promotion with Google Checkout. If your order is $30 or more, you can get $10 off immediately if you use Google Checkout instead of your own registration. The final price I paid was $15.96 and only a couple of weeks later I sold it for $33.2.

This only reason I can think of people buying used is that they buy it in a hurry. They have to use it right away, so can’t wait a good deal to come up. However, for the flash drive, it’s hard for me to see what the rush is. Another possibility, people hate rebates. Sure some rebates cause troubles and seem taking forever to get the check, but a good rebate from a reputed retailer shouldn’t prevent you from getting the product you want at a favorable price. Otherwise, you may end up paying much more. I myself don't mind use rebates and won't feel bothered if I have to call to straight things out.

Anyway, if you also want to make a few bucks by selling your stuff on Amazon, the following are what I thought you may want to know:

1. Only those items Amazon currently sells on its website (either from Amazon or from a third party retailer) can be listed for free. Amazon only gets paid if the item is sold;
2. To list your own items, you have to setup a pro account and pay monthly fee;
3. Free listing is for 60 days only, and once the listed item doesn't get sold in 60 days, Amazon will remove it from the marketplace, but you can re-list it immediately;
4. Amazon collects payment for you and credits you some of the shipping cost (buyer pays for shipping), so you avoid the hassle of dealing with the buyer, but you are responsible for the difference between the actually shipping cost and the shipping credits you received from Amazon;
5. Proceeds will be sent to your bank account directly on a biweekly basis;
6. The commission is quite steep though there's no listing fee, for example, the commission for a $69.99 book is $12.72 and the commission for a $74.99 printer is $8.19.

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