Strange order patterns for books?
This query is particularly for book sellers on Amazon.
I have often wondered about the odd way book orders come in on the site. A case in point - Up to this afternoon I had sold no books at all for 7 seven days, when two seperate orders from seperate buyers came through, each at exactly the same time. No others have followed. It's not the first time I've seen sudden bursts of activity like this, with clusters of orders coming through after long periods of inactivity. Surely onene would expect them to be more evenly distributed? It's almost as if my listings suddenly became visible to potential buyers for a short period of time and then became obscured again.
In more general terms, I have been selling books on Amazon in a small-scale way for more than 20 years, and sales have never been as poor as they have been for the last few months. I think people are increasingly looking elsewhere to source their reading material. Would people agree?
Strange order patterns for books?
This query is particularly for book sellers on Amazon.
I have often wondered about the odd way book orders come in on the site. A case in point - Up to this afternoon I had sold no books at all for 7 seven days, when two seperate orders from seperate buyers came through, each at exactly the same time. No others have followed. It's not the first time I've seen sudden bursts of activity like this, with clusters of orders coming through after long periods of inactivity. Surely onene would expect them to be more evenly distributed? It's almost as if my listings suddenly became visible to potential buyers for a short period of time and then became obscured again.
In more general terms, I have been selling books on Amazon in a small-scale way for more than 20 years, and sales have never been as poor as they have been for the last few months. I think people are increasingly looking elsewhere to source their reading material. Would people agree?
22 replies
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
I remember in the past (as a fellow bookseller) if sales were slow we could contact seller support and ask that our listings could be 'refreshed', and that often sparked an increase in sales, but that option no longer seems to available. My book sales are dismal also. Been on here 18 years - not quite as long as you !
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
This phenomena is definitely a thing and much more noticeable if you sell through multiple sites. They very rarely all fire at the same time.
Amazon was in the doldrums for me all summer, but oddly selling a much higher proportion of used books than normal. Bounced back to a degree now.
Ebay was flying last month, dropped off this month but replaced by ABE and Biblio.
For years one theory that regularly gets trotted out, is that the sites 'churn' the listings and every now and then your listings end up at the top. I've always thought it's a SEO thing.
What is very apparent is continually adding new inventory stimulates sales and not just from the new listings. There are sellers that swear that regularly purging and replacing their inventory works for them.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hello Craig,
My sales were increasing over July and August when they suddenly 'dropped off a cliff'.
Coincidentally, this was when the Voice of the Customer bot picked up a 'I received an empty envelope' message. That customer did not then reply when given full postage and tracking information, but the bot picked up the complaint and marked it Very Poor.
It has been said repeatedly that Voice of the Customer does not impact sales, so if your sales dropped at the same time it might have been the drop-off of book sales for summer holiday travel...
But yes, i have also noted the pattern you report with no orders for days and then a brief burst of activity
Hope these comments help
Brian
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
Things have certainly got tougher for used booksellers in the past few years. Not only the hurdles that Amazon give us to jump ("brand" approval, high price malarky etc), but the rise of megas like WoB & Awesome, & scrapers like Mersea, Walton & the Turkish lot. The ratio of books sold to books in stock is getting ever smaller. But there have always been these odd fluctuations in orders, and the odd thing is they always seem to occur across all the sites - Az.Uk, Az.us, Abe, etc - at the same time (Alibris & Antiq seem virtually moribund). Yesterday was very busy, today not. No rhyme nor reason. But after 25-odd years on the roller-coaster I've ceased to worry unduly.
Seller_vijjPUI46bUSN
I've noticed this too recently, il have a day or 2 of sudden bursts of sales then nothing for a week. Very strange
With regards to sales I think the rise in fees as had an impact, it seems now that probably 75% of books aren't profitable anymore due to the high fees and bigger sellers driving down the prices. I'm finding now as an FBM seller that any books priced under £10 aren't profitable.
Cooper_Amazon
Good Morning @craigwlomas2003,
It looks like you have some feedback and a good discussion going with a few of your fellow book sellers.
If any of their responses helped you, feel free to mark it as “Most Helpful reply” using the 3 dots in the corner of their post. Just in case others have the same issue, the Most Helpful Reply feature brings the selected response right to the top of your thread. Sellers will be able to see the answer right away as your discussion will have a green checkmark when searched within the forums.
I additionally have some more resources you can explore to see if you are able to boost your sales as books is a pretty popular category so optimization and strategy will be important on setting yourself apart from other sellers.
- Are you amplifying your sales - Walk through Seller University Video Tutorial
- Are you using your search terms effectively. Check out this help page to double check.
- Great Detail Pages Drive Sales - How is your detail page doing?
- Can you improve product details and bullet points?
- Have you thought about offering fee discounts, gift options or uploading a video to the detail pages of your product?
Hopefully some of the resources above help shine a light on what other opportunities you can take to increase your book sales.
If you have any questions about these processes, please let me know, or you can reach out to Selling Partner Support at anytime. I hope all this feedback helped and may the sales continue to be with you. Cheers and have a fabulous rest of the week.
Sincerely, Cooper_Amazon
Seller_TufyJDtetbrlU
Yes i notice this too although i do not sell books i sell t-shirts, 2 days ago i had not a single sale until around 4pm which was very unusual then all of a sudden 3/4 orders came in around the same time. Also see the same patterns you do and was thinking exactly the same thing
