QUESTION: Are books with high Amazon sales ranks — say, more than 200,000 — still a good bet for Fulfillment by Amazon?
ANSWER: Yes. If you want to sell for the best price you’ve got to ignore the lowballers and use FBA as your edge.
So, I’ll send a book with virtually any sales rank — up to 1 million — to FBA and wait for the sale, even if it’s a valuable book worth $100 to $200 (in those cases I wrap the book within my UPS box to prevent any bumped corners or torn dust jackets at the Amazon fulfillment center).
However, I’ve gotten a lot more conservative about sending bulk inventory to FBA since they implemented the long-term storage fee for items stored longer than 365 days. When they started that policy last year, I had to have more than 1,000 books destroyed I had already shipped to the warehouse or else get socked with a penalty of more than $1,000. Now that hurts — having to destroy inventory you’ve bought and paid for, then paid to ship to Amazon.
Of course the long-term storage storage fee wouldn’t apply to long-tail books you’ve hand-picked at library sales, etc., since the first unit of any ASIN is exempted from the 365-day rule. Yes, my standard practice before they implemented the long-term fee was to send them all as soon as I got them. Now I’ve got to be virtually 100% sure they’ll sell within a year before sending.
You can’t blame Amazon for trying to maximize the turnover at its warehouses, but they should have grandfathered-in those of us who were blindsided with the long-term storage fee last year.
Speaking of the long-term storage fee, it will be decreased effective February 15, 2012, from $45.00 per cubic foot to $22.50 per cubic foot, but will now be charged twice a year instead of once, as previously. More details:
Dear FBA Seller,
Fulfillment by Amazon’s (FBA’s) next inventory cleanup will take place on February 15, 2012. As communicated previously, on that date, and each six months thereafter, FBA will assess an upfront, Long-Term Storage Fee on inventory that has been in our fulfillment centers for 365 days or more.
Please note the following changes to the Long-Term Storage Fee. The fee will be decreased effective February 15, 2012, from $45.00 per cubic foot to $22.50 per cubic foot, but will now be charged twice a year. However, Units that were charged a Long-Term Storage Fee on August 15, 2011, will not be charged a Long-Term Storage Fee on February 15, 2012.
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Amazon suspends merchant for paying for product reviews
If you’re a seller, Amazon will nail you for posting product reviews of the stuff you’re selling.
One seller, VIP Deals, who was offering rebates in exchange for five-star product reviews, was apparently suspended by Amazon after the New York Times ran a story about them. Not only did Amazon take down VIP’s listings, they wiped out the product page, too.
Just to be clear, we’re talking about product reviews, not merchant feedback.
This is one thing that escapes the attention of many sellers: Amazon’s “prohibited seller activities” includes writing product reviews of items you’re selling. The logic is, if you have a financial interest in the product, it’s too tempting to post an undeservedly glowing review of it (in other words, a “fake” endorsement). Here’s Amazon’s wording:
So, was VIP Deals in the wrong for offering a rebate to buyers in exchange for reviews? No debate in this case. Where they went over the line was in hinting they expected 5-star reviews in exchange for refunds–according to what I’ve read. As the Times recounts, thousands of Amazon customers discovered VIP’s Kindle Fire leather cases priced at $10, marked down from $59.99. The packages arrived with a letter asking buyers “to write a product review for the Amazon community.”
“In return for writing the review, we will refund your order so you will have received the product for free,” the letter said. Here’s a picture of the letter:
There’s nothing inherently wrong about providing free products solely for review consideration. Amazon has a giant program called Amazon Vine, which serves as a pipeline between publishers, product manufacturers, and Amazon’s amateur reviewers. Vine reviewers get a newsletter once a month offering review copies of new books and other products.
You can’t directly sign up for Amazon Vine. It’s one of those “don’t call us, we’ll call you” situations. If you frequently post product reviews on Amazon and get a sufficiently high percentage of “helpful” votes, you’ll get the invitation.
Check out most of the Amazon Vine reviews, and you’ll see that most (but not all) of the reviewers consistently post five-star product reviews. Perhaps they post upbeat reviews because they can expect to receive even more freebies from manufacturers who want reviews of new items.
I’ve heard that it costs publishers more than $5,000 to get a single book included in the Vine program. And so publishers are frustrated when, every once in a while, a Vine reviewer pans a book, according to Publishers Weekly.
One of the most notorious Amazon reviewers is Harriet Klausner, who often posts dozens of glowing book reviews each day of the week.
I’ve been a member of Vine myself for three or four years, and one thing I’ve noticed is that the offered products closely follow your recent purchases. If I’ve recently bought a kitchen gadget on Amazon, the next Vine newsletter will offer kitchen gadgets, in addition to books. Last month I bought a license plate frame on Amazon, and sure enough, today’s newsletter offered auto accessories. So Amazon definitely tries to match up books and products with reviewers who are interested in that category.
How effective is Vine? That’s open to debate. One thing is obvious, though, it’s a cash cow for Amazon — they’ve got manufacturers lining up by the thousands paying big bucks for the privilege of giving away their merchandise, on the theory that they’ll eventually sell more of it.