I list trading cards (YGO, MTG) on Amazon, in addition to TCGPlayer.
Amazon is very lucrative because I can list commons at $0.01 where there's almost zero competition and make all of my money on shipping. I do this at high volume and have a high amount of repeat business/trust. I aggressively price the more expensive stuff and it works out well. YGO in particular is very good on Amazon because the secondary market for non-rares is shit for that game. Players have a hard time getting the low-value cards they need without opening new product or doing bulk buys.
I can often get 5x-10x what I would for some things (cheaper products that sell at higher volumes) on TCGPlayer because the market (customers & expectations) is different. Plus the feedback is a lot better. The fraud rate on Amazon is a fraction of what is at the card game sites.
I used to flip YGO cards at events (once made $25-35 per on Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, they were insanely undervalued when they first came out). Do you just purchase cases and resell?
I buy cases and I buy peoples collections. I sell at shows/conventions (I'm a vendor at big comic cons, etc) and that ends up being one of the best ways to buy collections.
Last year I managed to pick up a huge (triple digit) volume of 1st edition Yugi/Kaiba/Joey/Pegasus starter decks for essentially original cost. If you know what those go for you know what an incredible deal I made. (They're all sold now)
How do you make money on shipping? Do you use first class mail or media mail? Whenever I sell used stuff on amazon I end up losing my shirt on shipping.
First Class Mail. You set a shipping rate on Amazon that covers your costs and then some, for most shipping conditions. Free shipping is the sucker play (except for boxes/cases/etc)
I do not bother with Media Mail ever (except internationally with certain repeat customers). It is too slow and makes buyers unhappy.
It's really quite unnerving that Google (and Apple) has the potential to destroy any of the numerous mobile-first companies out there with effectively the flick of a switch. An entire company could be shut down, and many jobs ended, just by having their app suddenly deemed to be unacceptable. I'm looking forward to seeing what the EU will try to do about it.
The recommended approach is to get to scale in terms of customer awareness ASAP - so you have public channels available, and fans, to complain about any unfair actions on the part of the platform owner.
I'm partner in a logistics/fulfillment company out of Los Angeles doing just this, primarily for e-commerce and Amazon. We receive pallets to our warehouse, repackage if necessary, store, then ship orders received via API's. My partners have been regularly in the top ten of Amazon FBA volume over the last six years. We have spent the last six months optimizing our systems. We prefer smaller sized items (no bikes for example) and ship an array including CBD products.
One of our clients right now is a cannabis accessories brand from Holland, so we are receiving pallets already from UK. My email is on my profile page and would love to help out.
Well you just partner with someone who lives in the USA. Have that person localize ads and strategies, figure out local fulfillment (there's always FBA in the USA). Test out products doing well in the UK and see if they'll work in the USA. From the way the UK health business I know do business, it's not a trivial translation from UK to USA. Drop me a line on reddit at /u/organicdude if you'd like to chat more.
If you can get a USA company to do store-and-dispatch for you, why can't the Chinese sellers do that in the UK?
Aside: I was looking at something, cables for a multimeter IIRC - cheaper shipped from China than the delivery cost from UK providers; I can't get my brain around that. It means Chinese shippers are getting cheaper shipping for the Euro stretch than local shippers? (Local providers aren't overcharging the shipping AFAICT).
Chinese shippers in many cases do get cheaper rates than local shippers. The Universal Postal Union sets rates between postal services for different countries, which are called terminal dues. I'm not sure what the terminal dues are for China -> UK specifically, but for China -> US, the shipping is much cheaper for posts originating from China to the US than from within the US to within the US. It's centered around China -> US terminal dues, but this article[1] gives a good overview.
This is also why you won't see many Chinese sellers shift wholesale inventory overseas. It might lessen the transit time from purchase to delivery, but would drastically increase their shipping costs.
Related to the aside: It has been this way for a while. Check out ebay listings for < $1 USD shipped. Pretty much anything you could buy in a dollar store and more can be shipped to your door for less than a dollar if you are willing to wait up to 30 days sometimes. That entire inter-country shipping system is broken. From what I understand, they hand off the package with no fees going to the USPS. I believe it is that way for most tiny packages.
The key word her is "stackable" so the seller is focusing on volume selling which is very effective with amazon's one listing per item policy. If the item is very popular then having 600 of some item could be a weeks worth of inventory. Whereas on other sites, you would have to list on site and then everything is seller-by-seller....so if people don't see your listing or your price isn't good enough then you get no sales.
but yeah, that's just how it is. Selling products on ebay/amazon is not a guaranteed source of income so those types of businesses are inherently high-risk, especially if you are focusing on a specific product line or niche products.
so if people don't see your listing or your price
isn't good enough then you get no sales
Again, I understand how that can prevent a profit.
But how does it hinder you to put ads (I guess both Ebay and Amazaon have those) for your product and sell it off for half the price?
I'm not addressing that she might have to fold her business. I'm only addressing the being stuck with inventory part. That makes it sound like she had to throw it away or something.
Honestly, there are a lot of screwballs in the Amazon marketplace, and as a regular Amazon customer, I'm quite happy that they stick up for me. It's also clear that Amazon needs to improve their system for vendors. Shutting a vendor off without some form of human contact or rapid appeal will ultimately hurt their marketplace.
I once had to file an A to Z complaint, and the vendor called me personally asking me to cancel the complaint. In this case, the vendor was a bit of a screwball and entered into Amazon that he shipped me the entire order. I only received part of my order, and after a week of emailing back and forth, I realized that the vendor never had the missing item in stock.
On the phone, the vendor pushed really hard on me to cancel my A to Z complaint. I flatly told the vendor that Amazon listed the item as delivered to my address, and he never shipped it. I then told him he needed to work with Amazon to resolve the problem. He should have never called me in the first place. Instead, he should have been able to work out the problem with Amazon.
At that point it became clear to me that Amazon might be a bit too heavy-handed with vendors. Even though the vendor was clearly in the wrong, and clearly a screwball, the fear in his voice of an A to Z complaint made me suspect that Amazon is too heavy handed in handling disputes like mine.
If there's anything I've learned from selling on Amazon, it's that both buyers and sellers are willing to pay a premium for the smooth experience that Amazon provides.
Literally everyone benefits. I honestly don't know how Ebay, PayPal, and retailers stay in business.
There are some strategies to prevent Amazon from destroying your business, but you have to be very careful.
I know people who make 3k+/month with a 3-5k+ investment. They don't really care that it doesn't work anymore for that specific product after 4-5 months. The ROI is crazy. But most people don't know how to do this properly and lose money. For these people it's basically gambling and I wouldn't recommend it. It's hard to pull it off consistently.
edit: OT - is it just my perception or is HN more interested in passive income sources lately? (also making passive money with SaaS like the projects on indiehackers.com)
Being interested in passive income is a new trend, over the past 10 years. Nothing wrong with it, but everyone I know with spare money and a little ambition is trying to flip houses or buy rental properties. Or sell things for Amazon. Or run a delivery chain for Amazon.
Where I grew up small businesses could be "turned off" by the local government at the drop of a hat if they competed with the businesses of the well connected, the owner offended the wrong person, etc, etc. It would all eventually be "made right", sometimes in court, but because most business was seasonal many businesses would fold in the time it took for things to be "made right".
Is having an algorithm flag you and ruin your business and source of income with no warning and inadequate recourse really that different from the status quo?
And here, there's a trail that leads to Amazon as the cause for disruption. In both cases, interested parties could know who was at fault but the result is the same: such catastrophic loss during the run of "the process" that the seller is out of business regardless.
Yes. Government, even moreso local governement, is supposed to be subject and an expression of the will of the people. The multinational corporation is barely so.
When the company screws you over, you'll have no recourse. This is the libertarian dream.
Amazon can't send cops to my house if I decide I'm gonna keep selling my product on eBay or register for a new Amazon seller account. If you keep trying to run a business that's been condemned by local government eventually cops will show up and stop you from running that business.
The stakes are lower in the case of Amazon. You're not renting shop space. You're not sitting on as much inventory. You can jump ship more easily (kind of hard to relocate your business to another location). The trade-off is that they can also kick you out more easily.
Complain to the company's management. Organize other customers to shun the company. If it is really an example of gross negligence or overreach on the part of the company, their customers will care and hold them over the fire for it.
The company exists to make money which it can only do by servicing those who use it. It may gain a lot of power with a monopoly, but it must still provide its service or die.
I know a couple of people who have done this with some success. It’s basically a game of front-running since you’ll never compete on price, unless you own the factory or have a real sweetheart deal.
Your only hope is to pick up the pennies on your race to the bottom, especially with your platform (Amazon) liable to compete with you, in addition to some very hungry foreigners who can live off of much less than you due to pitching power disparities.
Readit News
Amazon is very lucrative because I can list commons at $0.01 where there's almost zero competition and make all of my money on shipping. I do this at high volume and have a high amount of repeat business/trust. I aggressively price the more expensive stuff and it works out well. YGO in particular is very good on Amazon because the secondary market for non-rares is shit for that game. Players have a hard time getting the low-value cards they need without opening new product or doing bulk buys.
I can often get 5x-10x what I would for some things (cheaper products that sell at higher volumes) on TCGPlayer because the market (customers & expectations) is different. Plus the feedback is a lot better. The fraud rate on Amazon is a fraction of what is at the card game sites.
Last year I managed to pick up a huge (triple digit) volume of 1st edition Yugi/Kaiba/Joey/Pegasus starter decks for essentially original cost. If you know what those go for you know what an incredible deal I made. (They're all sold now)
I do not bother with Media Mail ever (except internationally with certain repeat customers). It is too slow and makes buyers unhappy.
This is discussed e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_futu...
If you really depend, you are in high risk and should be ready to be shut down at any time.
I sell exclusively through Facebook ads.
Around 20K per month revenue with 70% margin.
This is in UK only. I've no idea how to move product to the US and sell there.
I've not found any company which can take my products from UK and store it in a wharehouse in the US then dispatch them to address i specify.
Lemme know if you know about any such company.
One of our clients right now is a cannabis accessories brand from Holland, so we are receiving pallets already from UK. My email is on my profile page and would love to help out.
Aside: I was looking at something, cables for a multimeter IIRC - cheaper shipped from China than the delivery cost from UK providers; I can't get my brain around that. It means Chinese shippers are getting cheaper shipping for the Euro stretch than local shippers? (Local providers aren't overcharging the shipping AFAICT).
This is also why you won't see many Chinese sellers shift wholesale inventory overseas. It might lessen the transit time from purchase to delivery, but would drastically increase their shipping costs.
[1] http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese...
?
I can understand that other marketplaces might not be efficient enough to turn a profit. But just selling the inventory at purchase price?
What alternatives are there? Ebay comes to mind. Anything else?
but yeah, that's just how it is. Selling products on ebay/amazon is not a guaranteed source of income so those types of businesses are inherently high-risk, especially if you are focusing on a specific product line or niche products.
But how does it hinder you to put ads (I guess both Ebay and Amazaon have those) for your product and sell it off for half the price?
I'm not addressing that she might have to fold her business. I'm only addressing the being stuck with inventory part. That makes it sound like she had to throw it away or something.
I once had to file an A to Z complaint, and the vendor called me personally asking me to cancel the complaint. In this case, the vendor was a bit of a screwball and entered into Amazon that he shipped me the entire order. I only received part of my order, and after a week of emailing back and forth, I realized that the vendor never had the missing item in stock.
On the phone, the vendor pushed really hard on me to cancel my A to Z complaint. I flatly told the vendor that Amazon listed the item as delivered to my address, and he never shipped it. I then told him he needed to work with Amazon to resolve the problem. He should have never called me in the first place. Instead, he should have been able to work out the problem with Amazon.
At that point it became clear to me that Amazon might be a bit too heavy-handed with vendors. Even though the vendor was clearly in the wrong, and clearly a screwball, the fear in his voice of an A to Z complaint made me suspect that Amazon is too heavy handed in handling disputes like mine.
Literally everyone benefits. I honestly don't know how Ebay, PayPal, and retailers stay in business.
I know people who make 3k+/month with a 3-5k+ investment. They don't really care that it doesn't work anymore for that specific product after 4-5 months. The ROI is crazy. But most people don't know how to do this properly and lose money. For these people it's basically gambling and I wouldn't recommend it. It's hard to pull it off consistently.
edit: OT - is it just my perception or is HN more interested in passive income sources lately? (also making passive money with SaaS like the projects on indiehackers.com)
Is having an algorithm flag you and ruin your business and source of income with no warning and inadequate recourse really that different from the status quo?
When the company screws you over, you'll have no recourse. This is the libertarian dream.
The stakes are lower in the case of Amazon. You're not renting shop space. You're not sitting on as much inventory. You can jump ship more easily (kind of hard to relocate your business to another location). The trade-off is that they can also kick you out more easily.
The company exists to make money which it can only do by servicing those who use it. It may gain a lot of power with a monopoly, but it must still provide its service or die.
Your only hope is to pick up the pennies on your race to the bottom, especially with your platform (Amazon) liable to compete with you, in addition to some very hungry foreigners who can live off of much less than you due to pitching power disparities.