No used book sales in 2 weeks
I dont know if my constant complaining about the problems facing 2nd hand book sellers is catching up with me!!
I am only a very small seller (approx 3500 listings) with over 20 years on Amazon. Over the last year I have averaged 4-5 sales per week. With the exception of holidays I have never not sold at least one book in a week. Suddenly I have gone 2 weeks without a sale.
Has any other second hand bookseller experienced something similar recently?
No used book sales in 2 weeks
I dont know if my constant complaining about the problems facing 2nd hand book sellers is catching up with me!!
I am only a very small seller (approx 3500 listings) with over 20 years on Amazon. Over the last year I have averaged 4-5 sales per week. With the exception of holidays I have never not sold at least one book in a week. Suddenly I have gone 2 weeks without a sale.
Has any other second hand bookseller experienced something similar recently?
14 replies
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
@Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21 - I have managed 8 sales in the past 30 days, but nothing like the early days when you could expect several a day, and often 10-12 at the weekend.
My current inventory is just over 2000 now.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
Selling 2nd hand books on Amazon gets more difficult by the day. On the one hand you've got the likes of WoB, Awesome/Infinite, & other megas driving prices for the more modern stuff down to bottom, and many more people have been listing their books. On the other hand, Amazon makes it almost impossible to add new items with demands for 'brand' approval to list a 40-year old book & so on. Not to mention that the catalogue is in such a mess that I'm surprised anyone ever finds anything. And now BookFinder, which many people use to locate a book, often does not show the listings on Amazon, & is generally worse than it used to be (am I being paranoid, or has Amazon taken over BookFinder?).
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
It's the domestic 'bread & butter' that dried up for me, although a bit better this week.
Thankfully 'better' and international sales have held up quite nicely, although not through Amazon.
Seller_QIfMqKDNjs4wc
@Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21 Thanks for your reply on my post regarding the same issue - there is definitely something odd going on - have you had any sales yet?
Mine are slowly trickling through again, but despite Seller Support acknowledging there was an issue at Amazon's end they won't tell me what it is.
We can't go on paying the monthly fee for nothing!
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21,
Thank you for reaching out on the Seller Forums! I'm happy to see that other sellers have jumped in here to share what they've been seeing with book sales.
While I unfortunately don't have direct insights into why you may have seen this dip, I'd recommend reviewing the following to ensure you're not facing any account issues:
- Review Your Listing Quality: Check that your book titles, descriptions, and condition notes are complete and accurate. Small gaps can impact discoverability.
- Analyze Your Performance Metrics: Visit your Account Health Dashboard and verify your Order Defect Rate, Late Shipment Rate, and Cancellation Rate meet performance thresholds.
- Check Your Inventory Status: Navigate to Manage Inventory and confirm your listings are active and buyable. Listings can become suppressed due to policy changes or data quality issues.
Additionally, here are some best practices worth exploring:
- Optimize Your Product Listings: Provide detailed condition descriptions. Customers spend time reviewing condition notes, delivery information, and seller ratings.
- Review Your Pricing Strategy: Compare your prices against similar condition books. Competitive pricing is crucial for visibility in search results.
- Leverage Search Terms: Update backend search terms with relevant keywords like author names, series information, and genre-specific terms within the 250-byte limit.
I hope this helps! If you have any additional questions, please let me know.
All the best,
Jameson
Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
Does any of this still actually work?
Booksellers do not (with extremely rare exceptions) own the 'brands' ( such as Penguin Random House) that they sell.
Whenever we try to make updates to a catalogue listing we tend to come up against a message that says 'you are not the brand owner, go away'.
The catalogue is, sadly, a mess. Countless mangled catalogue pages with, eg, seller condition notes replacing Product Descriptions, incorrect images, incorrect titles, authors, publisjhers &c.
Then there are the millions of redundant duplicate ASINs created by (mostly overseas based) dropshippers that just add further confusion.
I also find it bizarre that Amazon search frequently fails to return the most commonly available UK editions of numerous English language books and shows only the US release and various European translated editions.
Advanced book search does not work and hasn't worked for ages. Try to specify publisher/binding/date/author and you generally get either no matches or a very limited selection with the bulk of potential matches not being displayed.
How is it that Abe booksearch can do all these things but Amazon cannot?
Very strange, given that Abe is owned by Amazon.
Seller_AlYpsVHv0gj21
@Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
Booksellers do not (with extremely rare exceptions) own the 'brands' ( such as Penguin Random House) that they sell.
Whenever we try to make updates to a catalogue listing we tend to come up against a message that says 'you are not the brand owner, go away'.
The catalogue is, sadly, a mess. Countless mangled catalogue pages with, eg, seller condition notes replacing Product Descriptions, incorrect images, incorrect titles, authors, publisjhers &c.
Then there are the millions of redundant duplicate ASINs created by (mostly overseas based) dropshippers that just add further confusion.
I also find it bizarre that Amazon search frequently fails to return the most commonly available UK editions of numerous English language books and shows only the US release and various European translated editions.
Advanced book search does not work and hasn't worked for ages. Try to specify publisher/binding/date/author and you generally get either no matches or a very limited selection with the bulk of potential matches not being displayed.
How is it that Abe booksearch can do all these things but Amazon cannot?
Very strange, given that Abe is owned by Amazon.
An excellent summary of just a few of the many problems that Amazon just dont seem to care about
