book pricing.
Can ANYONE make any sense of Amazons pricing policy ? I have had books deactivated for overpricing when it was rare, mine was the only one on Amazon and those few on ABE were £10 more. I was asked to provide a 'reference price' which was presumably the new price in about 1980 !
Now I have had another removed so I looked up the others for sale. Mine was £38. Ther are two at £30, which was not the case when I first listed as I am always the cheapest like for like. But there are three at £80, and the one new copy ( surely their 'reference price' ) is over £200 !
I cant make any sense of it at all. Book prices on Amazon are totally random. I have seen prices ranging from 10 to 200 for the same book and Amazon is mostly happy with it. But when one of the bucket shops puts up a valuable book for a ridiculous price i am suddenly expected to match it. I would rather take it down the charity shop. ( mind you, thats where the bucket shops get some of their books )
Is it just me or does this happen to others ?
22 replies
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
No, not just you.
Just to highlight the vaguery of Amazon's pricing policy: listed a copy of ISBN 9789774249013 at £83 a few weeks ago. At the time it was the only copy anywhere online. As expected it almost instantly spawned a listing by Paper Cavalier at getting on for twice the price.
Thought I'd sold it so closed the listing; PC's price jumped to £600+.
So who knows how it works.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
There are two different problems - one caused by Amazon & the other by megasellers. The likes of WoB go in for aggressive automated price undercutting, which has rendered a lot of books worthless. I have seen a large hardback being offered for 70p with free shipping; even with the best postal contract and getting the book for virtually nothing they must lose money.
Amazon's 'potential price violation' program is designed for new goods; it takes no consideration or understanding of all the variables that influence the price of a O/P book. It should apply to new books only.
Seller_dNa0OnTP0n8Ug
We give up with Amazon and their pricing policies. We upload everything to Amazon - those they reject so be it - we'll sell them elsewhere and Amazon will lose out on commission. Would rather sell elsewhere anyway.
Seller_nT7psArrIHc2I
It is happening loads recently. They are pushing lots of used book sellers over to Ebay with this stupid policy.
Just this afternoon I listed a book and was £30 cheaper than other sellers but it wouldn't let me list as it said I was too expensive and had to drop the price.
Seller_uK2aGVnqbtliE
Glad you posted on this. Currently I have 7 books deactivated for being too high priced. NB 2 of these have no "reference" price so how does Amazon know they are too high??
If I sell books at the £2 or £3 that Amazon demands I will make no profit or even possibly a loss. Yet another example of Amazon/s monopolisitic manipulation of prices.
As has been pinted out, this drives sellers to Ebay and also sooner or later buyers will realise that prices are manipulated by Amazon.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hi All,
I agree with all sellers commenting on the the frustrations this policy causes - I've just had a bulk seller undercut one of my books by 10% (including post) so had the dreaded 'potential pricing error' email.
But these sellers are in the USA and are offering a 10 day delivery for a large hardback for £3.99 which I find difficult to believe!
Something is going on...
All Best
Brian
Seller_l05ZkdklM9ZmX
I agree, there is no sense at all with any of this, but then it’s not humans doing it. And how do people get away with listing books which we all know are 30-40 years old as ‘New’ ?
Seller_eX5PU1b0GGPXn
Oh yes and the saga of PENGUIN BOOKS !
Some mega sellers jump on listings ALL the time
I spend more time moving my items around
I have sold on eBay for a while but never the same book on both
At least there I can block
Has anyone else noticed the usual suspects very seldom actually have a photo of any books they sell on eBay
Seller_Y1oO0uTL1Yk90
I agree Amazon pricing for used books seem crackers. They seem to remove the listing for little reason. At the moment I only sell on Amazon and do not use any listing software. Maybe this might help me.
Cheers
Seller_p27bs0l5E6QqD
What a litany of woes,and all quite true.The Amazon listings for old books is broken and nothing will fix it.
