New Amazon used-book seller here.
Do I recall someone advising booksellers to delete sold offers, as Amazon sometimes accidently changes out-of-stock offers to in-stock?
I never re-use a SKU; if I list another copy of a title I’ve previously sold, I assign it a new SKU.
Is there any downside to simply deleting the offer? And is deleting the same as “closing”?
And how do I delete/close the offer?
TIA for any help!
Nancy
Not sure why the second sentence displayed as a quotation…
Closing and deleting are not the same.
It is best to delete all inactive listings. When something sells elsewhere I just close the listing – and of course if it sells on Amazon, the listing closes by itself.
Then, about once a week or every ten days I delete all inactive.
Inactive listings can cause you trouble even though you have not had the item for weeks/months/years.
We’ve made a habit of deleting, not closing, sold listings every 5-7 days, Still had the occasional “ghost” listing (those that suddenly appear after being deleted-and then are sold again when the inventory is long gone!)
Several of our “ghosts” were sold over 3 years before. Where were they? Who knows! AMAZON swears this doesn’t occur-harumph!!
Have noticed w/ the new inventory pages that “ghosting” hasn’t happened lately! Knock on wood. Your experience may differ.
Remember if you have a cancellation, must change the amount on the listing from 0 to 1 to reactivate(Now, there’s a pop-up, on the right, where this can be done without clicking edit).
To delete one listing ,under LISTING STATUS, click “Inactive” on the pull down menu which will give you a list of Sold/Suppressed listings. Click the box to the left on the listing(s) you wish to delete. A rectangular aqua-color box will appear at the bottom, stating “SELECT GROUP ACTION”. A pop-up will appear w/. “Delete Listing” at the top!! To check if actually deleted, check your Suppressed & Inactive listings- they should be reduced by the same # of deletions(takes 15 to 20 minutes).
If wish to delete numerous listings, click the box by LISTING STATUS at upper left inventory page, which will click all boxes on the page. Delete as wish. With this method, ghost listings in mind, would double-check to make certain the listing(s) are deleted. Some old-timers hate the new inventory pages but so far, I find them superior to what we had in the past.
Personally, I think bookselling is still thrilling, I enjoy scouting though carrying heavy books and boxes is hard on old-bones. Admittedly a dying business- because Americans, as a whole, no longer read physical books and AMAZON doesn’t make it easy for used booksellers, gating most publishers until one has a selling history-and not always facilitating your listings, even then…
GOOD LUCK!! 
Hi @NCIrving2 and welcome to used book selling! It’s an interesting and unique adventure.
I fixed the odd quotation display in your post. 
I do the same as @bookwormapril, I like to leave the listing “closed” but still there to make sure I don’t have to “prove” what it was a week later. I don’t think you could dredge it up anyways, but it has now become the habit. When I first started, the data base from ABE books would only remove it if marked Sold and uploaded. Deleting would not remove it. It took several ghost sales there to figure it out, thus the habit of Sold, upload, then Delete was formed. In Inventory Management at Amazon every couple of weeks I list all the inactive, and delete any but very recent sales.
Good luck selling! Are you doing FBA or FBM? Do you have a specialty? Been selling books already elsewhere?
Thanks, April!
Hi @TEXASEXILEBOOKS,
Thanks for all the info.
I find there’s an “Out of Stock” listing status that I can use to (supposedly) display my sold books; but it was displaying only two books, when I have made about 40 Amazon sales to date. And when I checked a few of the other sold titles, they are not coming up even when I choose “All.” It may be that Biblio (whose uploading system I’m using) is deleting those SKUs for me.
I also enjoy scouting, and as an “old” I empathize with your feelings about heavy boxes! (I also have a storage unit, and the roll-up door is getting hard on my arthritic hands.)
P.S. Are you an exile IN Texas, or FROM Texas? 
Thanks papy, I’m always pressing wrong keys!
Hi @booknut7,
I use Biblio’s Pro Routing service, so changing the sold book’s status to “Sold” in my spreadsheet and uploading it to Biblio automatically removes/sets to zero my offer on Biblio, Amazon and Alibris. But I am going to keep tabs on the sold books to make sure they are actually deleted from Amazon, to be on the safe side, as you and others have recommended.
I’m doing FBM; I would never let Amazon handle my books!
I have no specialty, although I do get a lot of scholarly books. (Sadly, virtually all the scholarly/university press books are gated on Amazon.) “Grab anything that looks interesting” is my scouting technique; it’s worked for me so far.
I’ve been scouting for bookstores most of my adult life, but online on Biblio (and Alibris, though sales there are few) for a couple years. I finally took the plunge to get on Amazon a couple months ago, and listed my first books in mid-January.
I have decided to start by limiting myself to $50 and under books on Amazon, since I’ve heard so many horror stories about returns, item-not-received, and book-jackers. I’ve already had one return, but no “not-received,” and the Paper Cavalier and Ergode people have ordered but not caused any trouble.
I’m still working on getting all the <= $50 books to appear on Amazon. It’s quite a struggle.
What witth the above restriction, plus the many gated books, and books that are not appearing for unknown reasons, I have a stock of only about 600 books on Amazon as yet.
Now you know more about me that you wanted to know, I’m sure.
Thanks for your good wishes, which I return to you x10.
This is from Amazon. Since I am not real confident in using their spreadsheets I have NOT done as suggested so it may come back to bite me at some point.
HOW TO PERMANENTLY REMOVE AN ASIN
Delete SKUs Using Inventory Loader
You can use the Inventory Loader to delete SKUs from your inventory. Deleting SKUs is different from deleting offerings. Product detail pages are created based on input from many sellers. Using the Inventory Loader to delete SKUs will remove your contributions to the descriptive product attributes that are rendered on product detail pages. This enables you to manage the item data associated with specific SKUs.
Delete both your offers and item data contributions.
Enter an “x” in the add-delete field in your Inventory Loader file. This will completely remove all data associated with your SKU.
Deactivate your offers without deleting item data contributions.
Enter a “d” in the add-delete field in your Inventory Loader file. When you delete offers by entering a “d” in the add-delete field, it sets your inventory for the SKUs to “0”. This will make those listings show as inactive.
If you submitted a category-specific inventory file originally and want to use an Inventory Loader file to delete SKUs or make other changes to your listings, you can modify an Active Listings Report. See Use Reports to Update Inventory
Reuse of SKUs
• In general, we discourage reusing SKUs for different products. Each SKU should have a one-to-one relationship with a unique ASIN.
• Assign a new SKU to each new product being sold. This will maintain previous item data contributions that are associated with a specific SKU.
• If you do reuse a SKU, first delete the active ASIN data or you will receive an error message. To remove old associations before reusing a SKU, enter an “x” in your Inventory Loader file. This is important for sellers who routinely reuse SKUs to associate previous SKUs with new ASINs.
SIDE NOTE and personal opinion - I suspect it wouldn’t help anyway because I doubt the lawyers would ever allow complete removal of the information due to any potential legal liabilities at some time in the future –
EXILED From TEXAS!
I’m a 5th generation native-my husband is either 6th or 7th generation depending on whose records one believes. We’ve been away from TEXAS over 42 years though all my husband’s relatives are still there. Our kids are scattered everywhere, they’ll just have to come see us where we land.
Hopefully, we’ll return this year but not changing the biz name which is neutral enough to be either-I think most TEXAS customers think we’re in Texas.(Their attitude is: If one is already in paradise, why leave? I omit those Californians who moved to Austin for a cheaper experience-taxes much less and
housing/rent is less expensive unless one buys a house that appears in the Mansion section of the WSJ, which some did —and hate it because doesn’t have the Cali vibe!!..
…
Hi back @NCIrving2 and thanks for letting us get to know a bit about you and your biz. I have been pretty lucky with refund/returns so far. (Though currently waiting to see if a $130 purchase goes to A-Z, fingers crossed). But then again I am in Canada where the people are overall not out to scam as a first choice. And most of my stock is also under $50, so bearable when it happens. But Ggrrrrr when it does.
I’ve been selling on Amazon about 26 years, also do the Biblio, Alibris, ABE, etc for some other trickles of sales. The book hunting is the best part of the business, my philosophy of buying is the more unique it looks, the better to buy. But I am currently slowing down the collecting. If I quit buying altogether, it would likely take at least ten years to sell off the “good” stock, the rest will probably never sell.
Hi @dwat0870,
I’m having trouble makingg head or tail of that, but as I don’t want to delete the ASIN, I’m going to save those instructions for when I get to be more expert at Amazon.
Thanks though!
Forty-two years, that’s almost Solzhenitsyn-grade exile.
Can I ask why not?
I have a 10x20 storage unit full of books, but I’m still buying more every week that I don’t have time to list.
I’m at the age where I start imagining myself on a mortuary slab, but I don’t even want to think t the mass of books I’ll leave behind.
The ASIN represents the title; if I’m the only offer on the ASIN and I delete the ASIN, anyone else who wants to list the title will have to create a new listing, right? (Or am I not understanding how this works?)
You cannot delete an ASIN from the Amazon catalog. You can only remove your offer for that ASIN.
Deleting a SKU from your catalog is generally advisable if you no longer intend to sell the item. As long as the SKU is in your catalog, even closed status, you are open to listing violations, IP infringement claims, etc. @dwat0870’s instructions for deleting a SKU are intended to delete a SKU in the most thorough way possible, as Amazon has the (very) rare habit of resurrecting a listing a seller deleted.
That made me laugh!!,
Unlike the Nobel Prize Winner, I haven’t been imprisoned in a gulag. Freely allowed to visit friends and family within the LONE STAR STATE. (A brother lives near Fort Worth). I think he dreads me returning, least I visit more frequently that once yearly.