Well, the whole FBA model has changed over the last few years. I can’t recall the last time I sent anything to FBA; hard to get enough suitable to fill a box. The price benefit is not as common, and the costs have gotten much higher than in the past. I can see being 100% FBM within just a few more months.
I recently downgraded from a professional account to an individual account. In the last year went from 50 to 70 books a month sold to 20 or 30 at best. The constant “improvements” by Amazon have ruined searchability and the ability for anyone to find your listing.
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Hi @Picks_by_Nisha @BookBounty and @TEXASEXILEBOOKS , I thought your conversation was important enough to pull into its own topic. Selling used books on Amazon is a very different landscape than when I started in 2018.
As a reminder to all SellersAskSellers users, we also have a private Booksellers category. It requires a bit of vetting to join, so if you’re interested please tag me here @papy or flag this comment as “something else”.
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Evidence that Used Books as a category won’t be eliminated anytime soon:
The top 100 Amazon Sellers (by feedback volume) as of September 19th contains 5 used booksellers at positions 4, 29, 30, 31, 68
That’s amazing when you factor in that less than 10% of all 3p sellers on the U.S. site even carry books in their storefronts; used book sales volume on Amazon is MASSIVE
There are usually at least 3 used booksellers in the top 100 at any given time, even more during “textbook seasons” & Q4
This doesn’t mean Amazon won’t restrict smaller sellers from the category, but we need to examine the reason behind Amazon no longer allowing Used Toys to be sold on their site:
-----------High Liability Issues ----------
- Many manufacturer warranties are void upon reselling toys as used
- Used toys may lack safety guidance / user manuals
- Aged / Vintage toys may contain harmful chemicals / materials
- AI might not be capable of widely enforcing the Collectible Toys requirements; sellers loophole the policy; closing the category might be easier and less costly than policing the policy
- Used Books have next to zero potential to physically harm a child; Toys are far riskier
Additionally, buyers of used books spend the money they saved from buying used books instead of new in other categories; especially textbook buyers.
I would not be surprised if Amazon eliminated the Collectible Category in Books, mainly for the same toy category policing reasons
I also expect Amazon to get even more draconian with High Pricing Errors in the Used Books Category; we might need to route those titles to other venues
Apologies if this reply is too much or over explained, but I hope I’m right about this and that other booksellers understand that while Amazon is extremely neglectful to their used booksellers, our products and volume still matters to Amazon customers, and therefore, to Amazon in general
- Muse
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I don’t think that the same reasoning would apply. The only “workaround” that Collectible gives you in books is getting around out-of-date list prices causing High Price Errors; otherwise, you can list most books as Used (and those that can’t be listed as Used can’t be listed as Collectible either). In Toys and Games, “Collectible” is used by way too many sellers to get around the restriction on “Used” toys, which is not new; it’s been that way since before I started selling here.
I’ll also add that basing “Top Sellers” on the number of feedbacks they get will likely skew the results; while no proof, I would not be surprised if used book buyers are more likely to leave feedback (as opposed to reviews) than buyers of other products. Although I could be totally wrong there…
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Nail, meet nuke.
As many Amazon 3P booksellers have pointed out - in the SAS, in the NSFE, and multiple other biz discussion venues - Amazon’s decision to limit the ability to create new ASINs only to the book’s publisher (many of which simply no longer exist), as delineated in the new SHC page “Error Code 5469 and approval requirements” (link), has reduced the opportunities to make Offer-Listings for used books even further.
Sigh.
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Also Lifeway Christian Resources, # 83, sells Books & Media. Way, way surprised that Glen the Bookseller is # 6. Had no idea they do such volume!!
Another surprise! Half-Price Books not listed. Of the MEGA sellers, in my opinion, their packaging is the best! During my brother-in-law’s final illness this summer, my husband and I took time to refresh ourselves by hunting for book-sales/bookstores in the McKinney/Anna/ Melissa/Allen area(north of Dallas) It’s a book desert!
Wealthy areas, in some instances w/ huge houses w/ staff-quarters/guest-houses in the rear. But no library sales/no libraries selling used books except Frisco and Burleson(the limit of our search since we have kin there. No, my relations don’t have live-in staff-they have horses/corgis!). Do readers perhaps travel to Dallas? Buy books on-line or read strictly on their phones? .
McKinney has a cute, limited bookstore in Old Town. But almost every town, even Burleson, has a Half-Price Books in a strip-mall. Yet, they don’t show in the top 100!! ..
Today, a mover(relocating our 12,000 remaining titles the better to cull them) refused a couple of free books after he mentioned a fondness for Louis L’Amour. Informed me he only read on his phone! That, my friends is where selling used books is-with no end in sight.
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Ditto. I don’t even remember seeing them until about a year or so (with their annoying shipping price).
And kinda surprised that Jenson isn’t on the list. I remember when they seemed to be on every book I listed.
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Glenthebookseller sounds like a guy selling books out of his basement, but it is a used bookselling account on Amazon backed by a megaseller, hence the low prices and huge volume of feedback.
Jensonbooks is based in northern Utah in a university town. I visited their megastore once. They seem less active lately, but as you said, a few years ago they seemed to have a copy of every book printed.
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I think it is appropriate to point out that all data provided by Marketplace Pulse is data which they derive from public sources and can be interpreted differently depending on the opinions and biases of the interpreter.
Making strategic decisions based on the volume of FB is not something Amazon is likely to do, and its relationship with how Amazon might make decisions can be argued without any ability to reach a reliable conclusion.
IMO the total dollar volume of book sales on Amazon will determine the future opportunities for 3P booksellers on Amazon.
I suspect that the average value of a book sale on Amazon had dropped every year this century, and the total percentage of book sales represented in Amazon revenue has also dropped.
As for anything related to collectible, unless a product safety concern is involved, it is likely to continue as it is, without any thought as to whether further changes sitewide will impact it negatively. It will die because of neglect, not any conscious Amazon action.
@TEXASEXILEBOOKS I suspect that Half Price Books does not appear because most of their stores have separate seller accounts, and the Marketplace Pulse methodology does not take that into account. There are other large volume sellers who are missed as well.
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Found this Amazon how-to today:
I thought this was interesting…
…until I clicked the link and realized that is based on all Amazon 3Ps, not just booksellers.
Anyway, the first link provides a lot of information, but it is quite a bit more “cheerleader-y” than seems warranted, I think. I didn’t see any mention that many titles are off limits, or how Sellers should plan to establish authenticity of or even authorization to resell on Amazon for many used books. The textbook section was quite optimistic IMO.
Of course, it’s there to get new 3Ps signing up as “a side gig or lucrative primary business,” so of course it sort of clouds the issues a new 3P used bookseller would face these days–particularly given the very limited (possibly nonexistent?) ability to create new ASINs, as @Dogtamer pointed out.
Although perhaps it’s not unreasonable to think that Amazon already has every possible used book ever already listed? 
Though as @bookwormapril rightly notes frequently, too many book ASINs are set up incorrectly or contain inaccurate info, and these days there is little we can do about it.
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I feel certain they do not. But I would guess at least 95% have or have had a detail page. Of books printed in English that is.
A post on the Amazon forum made me deeply suspicious. Someone claimed to have 300,000 titles with no available pages. Wanting to know about GTIN exemption.
x
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I run across a lot of books that don’t have pages; although many of those are not in English (usually Hebrew). And then there are the times where I can never track down the right version; I had one (don’t remember, but something like “Arabian Nights” or “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” where there are many different versions). Did a search with the ISBN, but it went to paperback instead of hardcover. Clicked the hardcover button; took me to a totally different version. Click Paperback on that page, took me to a totally different paperback. And that hardcover took me to yet another version; none of them linked back to where it came from. So listed it on eBay (which is what I generally do if it’s not on Amazon, and I’m able to figure out what the book is).
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Yeah… I’m also a bit skeptical.
It sometimes takes a little doing to find a good detail page, but most books in English do have one.
That OOP has not responded to clarify whether their titles are in English or not. @Picks_by_Nisha your point about books in Hebrew makes sense, and then I started to wonder about Spanish and Braille books being listed on .com (or French titles on .ca, etc).
I suspect that the OOP was doing some sort of integrated bulk search, and perhaps not realizing all the many ways that ASINs can be set up (or inaccurate, or barely discoverable, etc).
Surely they don’t have 300k new POD titles, created by AI and self-published? 
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They might have exactly that. The number of pdf files available for download exceeds that number and it is easy to create a new cover and title page and create a POD copy with your own imprint.
I knew a fellow who had acquired a huge number of early local history titles and offered PODs of them with a long lead time because he did not scan them until he had the first order. Once he had shipped the first order the lead time was reduced.
I actually sold several compilations of early ads from a variety of industries on Amazon (yes, copies of tear sheets). I stopped because they did not sell for enough for me to deal with printing them and staple binding or comb binding them during busy seasons.
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Over many years, I created hundreds of pages on Amazon for books that were not in their database, providing descriptions and pictures, but stopped doing it a while back because it was too much trouble.
Do I understand that booksellers creating a book offering on Amazon is now dis-allowed?
I offer my books on many sites, and know that offering a book for sale on sites other than Amazon would work out in the end.
Bookfinder.com (owned by Amazon) produces many book sales at lesser known sites.
As I found out recently, Alibris offers my (some of my) books on…Walmart and eBay!
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Not a chance.
Several books I wanted to own in the past couple years did not have a listing on Amazon. My tastes are not that eclectic, these books were just a couple decades old, out of print, and I guess no libraries picked it up because they hadn’t unloaded them on any FOL sales.
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That is what I have seen. But find it hard to believe. The bad pages created by bad sellers seem to be on the increase. I am thinking mostly of the many listed with Generic as publisher, and the many sharing that same detail page image of the print on demand leather bound stuff from India that all share the same image.
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My understanding is that the policy is now that only the publisher of a book can create a page for it. Might help prevent the total chaos with newer books, but makes it impossible to add anything old (although, like you, I never bother; just go to a different platform).
But as alluded to by April, “Publisher” seems to be a rather vague and low hurdle to clear.
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Have you noticed that glenthebookseller now shows as World of Books(previously glenthebookseller). Thought that was interesting and wondered why the name change. Something legal, I’m assuming?
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