FBA Bookseller Nightmare
We've been selling books on Amazon FBM for many years. Most are scholarly, out of print, obscure titles. After hearing so much about FBA, we decided to box up 5000 books, ship via UPS to our local Amazon warehouse. Six months later, approximately half the books were sold; the rest taking up space in fulfillment centers. And so the nightmare began: We chose to have the books returned to us, rather than have them discarded, as most are brand new books. We've been receiving shipments returned to us for months now, from all over the country (!); I've not yet calculated the hundreds (thousands?!) of dollars deducted from our seller account in Amazon postage to return those books. A costly lesson! My takeaway is our product wasn't right for FBA?! Perhaps if we'd sold best sellers that turned quickly? Or something/anything other than books? Just a cautionary tale to any bookseller thinking of making the switch to FBA. Do your research, know the costs involved if your books don't sell within the initial 6 months. I'm hopeful all books will be returned to us by year end, and we can begin 2024 with a clean slate, more control over our inventory and our income from Amazon. I've learned they are Fulfillment Centers, NOT warehouses!! I get it, I am continuing to get it :) And it was a learning experience :)
FBA Bookseller Nightmare
We've been selling books on Amazon FBM for many years. Most are scholarly, out of print, obscure titles. After hearing so much about FBA, we decided to box up 5000 books, ship via UPS to our local Amazon warehouse. Six months later, approximately half the books were sold; the rest taking up space in fulfillment centers. And so the nightmare began: We chose to have the books returned to us, rather than have them discarded, as most are brand new books. We've been receiving shipments returned to us for months now, from all over the country (!); I've not yet calculated the hundreds (thousands?!) of dollars deducted from our seller account in Amazon postage to return those books. A costly lesson! My takeaway is our product wasn't right for FBA?! Perhaps if we'd sold best sellers that turned quickly? Or something/anything other than books? Just a cautionary tale to any bookseller thinking of making the switch to FBA. Do your research, know the costs involved if your books don't sell within the initial 6 months. I'm hopeful all books will be returned to us by year end, and we can begin 2024 with a clean slate, more control over our inventory and our income from Amazon. I've learned they are Fulfillment Centers, NOT warehouses!! I get it, I am continuing to get it :) And it was a learning experience :)
16 respuestas
Seller_kIukTwdhvntAp
As you say, lesson learned and hopefully some other sellers will learn from this.
It COULD be worse. Look at the dozens of posts by book sellers that have been stopped cold from selling any books at all.
More and more brands are taking control of their own destiny on here. Unless you are authorized by the publishers or brands many sellers are being blocked entirely and that includes used and out of print books.
There are other sites that are a lot more seller friendly as well!
Seller_oF5HB95OyJK1x
Sorry to hear your awful experience. I don't know how anyone can be successful selling books on AZ using FBA. Good luck to you.
Seller_2LQMd7u0WyTlL
if you are not confident that your individual copy of a rarely sold book will sell within 2 or 3 months, don't send it in, or have a strategy that includes being aggressive with the price. 6 months is not the time frame you should look at, except in rare cases.
Seller_wWvjvVGee2TZj
You are VERY LUCKY that a competitor bookseller didn't place a sham (drop-shipped) order; then claimed that the book was received in a used condition or was outright "counterfeit" and then had Amazon destroy your entire inventory at YOUR COST with no recourse! Protect your inventory and stick to FBM!
Seller_ToPPYvOWlyp9j
Generous to share your horrid experience.
We also sell many long-tails. Back in the day, when I had more energy(and employees), calculated 70% of our volumes stay on our shelves an avg. of 14 months. We specialize in speculative fiction/vintage mass markets and history/bio. None of them quick sellers. One reason we stay away from FBA.
Other reasons: I dislike giving AMZ more control of our inventory than they already have. The main reason we rarely use AMZ shipping (few returns/customer issues that can't be handled ourselves) I believe TPTB suppress sales at will-for opaque reasons-to benefit MEGAS(mostly) and FBA.
Finally, wouldn't trust the warehouses to ship our fragile volumes, no matter how well we pre-packaged them.
Call me a conspiracy theorist-about this platform, admittedly, I've become one.
Seller_aR3hgsKpsi9Co
Never give up optional control! You really thought someone in a fulfillment center would "care" about your products? That's akin to the old, "We're from the Government and we're here to help you!".
Seller_dy0iaamuixQa3
Thank you for your honest and refined appraisal. It reinforces my decision to remain FBM ... although there a lot of people who do well with FBA.
Seller_oDXVaydIpi3Hi
You will likely receive only a portion, 30% of them damaged, and will continue to receive random books for the next year or two while being billed storage despite requesting return.
Bryce_Amazon
Good morning,
Thank you for sharing your candid experience, and I offer my apologies for the frustration it has caused. If you ever run into issues in the future, please don't hesitate to post on the forums or reply to me directly, as I would be happy to help in any way that I can. Best of luck to you in all of your future endeavors!
- Bryce
Seller_bB1hghc1ww1AL
Hola como estas? Te puedo hacer una consulta ya que se ve que sabes mucho del tema.
Tengo unidades en reserva hace como 2 meses y no me deja retirarlas de Amazon. Ademas justamente esas unidades estan en un listing donde estoy bloqueado y no las puedo vender.
Soporte Tecnico de Amazon no me da respuesta, Como puedo hacer?
Y otra pregunta mas tengo unas unidades que si pude retirar, cree un listing propio y las quiero mandar a ese listing pero cuando cargo el envio en sellercentral cuando me pone la opcion para elegir UPS por Amazon o otro empresa, si elijo UPS por Amazon me dice que la dirrecion es incorrecta, no se tampoco como resolverlo.
Me podrias ayudar?
Mil gracias por tu respuesta!!
