Q&A: How can I reprice my Amazon inventory using my Mac?

QUESTION: I am looking for a system to automate my price checking. I have a Mac, which can sometimes limit the choices of what is available.

I have always manually repriced my inventory, usually a page of listings a day, and it’s getting harder to manage as my inventory increases.

ANSWER: I know the feeling. About five years ago, I had 10,000 unique books listed on Amazon, and there was no seller software available. Repricing took me about four days and gave me eye strain, carpal tunnel, and a sore butt.

Now there’s lots of seller software on the market, and fortunately there’s some options for Mac users too.

We will assume you’re an Amazon Pro-Merchant, which gives you access to the listings reports that enable you to automate many tasks.

There’s two options for Mac users as far as seller software goes. (If there are more recent additions, hopefully someone will add a comment and enlighten us.)

There’s a free repricer called Tooyen. Basically you download your open listings, Tooyen suggests an optimal price, and you review the prices, change them if necessary, and upload the spreadsheet to Amazon.

There’s a Web-based seller service called The Art of Books.

The Art of Books has many more features than Tooyen but you pay a monthly fee for using it. It’s Web based, so you could use it to reprice, then I think you’d need to import that into your spreadsheet and upload the file to Amazon. Here’s their forum for Mac users.

When we talk about downloading and uploading the Amazon Open Listing report, it’s a service they call “Inventory Loader.” You can also use it to add or delete listings, or change prices or quantities. Here’s a tutorial on Amazon’s site.

If you’re already familiar with using Microsoft Excel (or any spreadsheet software) it will be a tremendous help and your learning curve won’t be so bad. If you don’t have a spreadsheet program, here’s a free software suite that I’ve been using for about the past six months with wonderful results: OpenOffice. It has a full suite of programs and includes a word processor. It looks like Microsoft Office, but works better, if you ask me. And it’s multi-platform and free. The spreadsheet program you’ll be using with your open listings report is called “Calc.”

Related posts:

1. Q&A: How can I manage my Amazon book inventory on a Mac?
2. Tooyen reprices Amazon seller inventory for free