And Now for Something Completely Different...

 

I am so excited to announce launch of my brand new website! I have been hard at work for the last few months developing several new projects - all of which will help online sellers be more successful, make more money, and enjoy the freedom of working from home. The site is only about 50% complete. Here is what I have so far:

A free gift for all my readers! Download a free copy of my eBook, "Cash Hiding in Your Home" - a list of 30 items commonly found in many homes that look like junk but actually have value in the eBay marketplace. These are items hiding in plain sight! You may have cash all around you and not even realize it.  Head on over to my new site, SuzanneAWells.com and grab a copy - there may be items on this list that even seasoned eBay sellers don't know about. (And thanks to the members of my Facebook Group for helping contribute to this fantastic list! I learned a bunch of new things reading their ideas, and I've been selling on eBay for 10 years!)

Have a question or just need some quick guidance on an eBay or Amazon issue? Schedule an appointment for a 20 minute consultation using my online scheduler here.

Coming soon:

Ready to learn more about online selling? Sign up to receive updates about my new online eCommerce school, Unite eCommerce. This online school will have a community college feel - you choose what courses you want to take depending upon your most pressing needs, your current skill level, and what interests you. No monthly membership fees, no prerequisite classes, no experience or education required. Just show up and learn something new. Class fees will be reasonable and affordable. I'm busy recruiting other experienced sellers with eCommerce specialties to help teach their passions. Some classes coming soon include:

eBay for Beginners

Selling Pre-owned Clothing on eBay

All About eBay Shipping

Authenticating Designer Items (to avoid VERO violations on eBay)

Hiring Help for Your At-Home eBay or Amazon Business

Book Keeping and Basic Tax Info for eCommerce Sellers

Selling Children's Clothing

eBay and Amazon Best Practices 

Selling Books on Amazon   

Using Amazon Reports

Holiday Selling Strategies

I've got some fantastic teachers lined up and we are hard at work creating these courses to help you learn more, do more, and make more money! Sign up here to receive more information about upcoming classes, class schedules, and other information about this revolutionary new online learning center. If you have an idea for a class please leave a comment below. And if you are an experienced seller and would like to join my team, I'd love to hear from you! Just contact me here and let's talk!

Take a look around my new site here and stay tuned for more announcements coming soon!

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Excellent Change in Amazon Feedback Policy

Exciting change in Amazon's Feedback Policy! Amazon will now remove feedback if it is a complaint about the price of an item. My colleage (and FBAMom's partner) Kim Tarrant recently received this response when she sent in a ticket regarding a feedback referring to price:

We have received your complaint on Order ID:110-XXXX-XXXX, and determined that it is removable as per Amazon's feedback policy since it exclusively talks about the experience of the buyer with the product most particularly its price and shipping cost. Please be advised that in light of recent changes in our Standard Operating Procedures we are now authorized to remove feedback if the entire feedback pertains only to the experience of the buyer regarding the price and the shipping cost of the product. If you have additional questions or comments on this update, or with our Feedback Policy, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

 I sent in a ticket for 2 feedbacks of this nature the same day, and they were also removed. This is big news! Buyers remorse won't work any more, and buyers who don't read the listing or find the item cheaper later can't penalize us anymore. Get busy going through your feedbacks and submitting tickets!

 Related Articles:

Getting to Know Your Online Customers

Amazon Ranked Highest Overall by Online Sellers

Make Money Writing and Selling Your Own Kindle Book   

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Money Magazine Survey - Amazon Ranked Highest Overall by Online Sellers

In the May 2013 May issue of Money Magazine, there is an article titled "Getting the Best Price for Your Castoffs" that explains the differences between different online marketplaces. Choosing the right venue is the key to getting the best price for your item. Based on the 2013 Sellers Choice Survey provided by Ecommerce Bytes, Amazon scored the highest overall, and the highest for profitability and communication.

Many eBay sellers understand that eBay is limited in its capacity to help them sell items online. eBay is definitely the best venue to sell collectibles, one of a kind items, and items truly limited in number such as event tickets or autographed items. Also, since Amazon restricts some categories, and most sellers are not approved in those categories, items like clothing, shoes, jewelry, automotive items, and electronics will have to go on eBay. Amazon is best for used and new media (with the exception of rare, collectible, or very high priced items), retail items including health and beauty items, toys, groceries, office supplies, and other consumer goods new in the box or new in the package. Most sellers who sell on both sites will agree that Amazon's payment system has a lower "hassle factor," and the explosive growth of both the Amazon FBA System and the number of Prime Buyers are fueling their Amazon businesses nicely.

Understanding the different marketplaces and choosing the right one for your item will help you make more money and save time in the long run. In fact, Money Magazine quoted me on this (page 32):

Many of you reading this are striving to make online selling a significant income stream, or maybe your only source of income so that you can enjoy more freedom and flexibility in your own life. Knowing how to sell on both eBay and Amazon will help you reach that goal. Once you are proficient in selling on both sites, the world will open up to you and you will have more opportunities to sell items no matter where you find inventory. For example, I source items from just about everywhere including garage sales, thrift stores, retail stores, closeout stores, Craigslist, online retailers, eBay to sell on Amazon, Amazon to sell on eBay, etc. Selling online is a skill that you must develop and practice, and the more you know about how to sell online, the more successful you will be, and the more money you will make.

If you are an eBay seller and haven't tested the Amazon waters yet, here are a few FREE resources to get you started:

Podcast - Getting Started on Amazon

Free eBook - 90 Day Amazon Experiment

Amazon Help - How to List an Item on Amazon

If you are dabbling with Amazon and want to get more serious and take your business to the next level, you may want to enlist the help of an experienced seller to help you. Hiring an expert can save you time, money, frustration, and help you succeed faster than if you had to figure out the business on your own. I have been selling on Amazon since 2009, have sold over 25,000 items, and have learned a lot about this business by trial and error, experimentation, and spending time doing things that didn't work. I offer the following services to help you learn the Amazon business:

Amazon FBA Recipe for Success (downloadable course)

How to Make Money on Amazon Selling Toys (downloadable multimedia course)




The opportunities provided by ecommerce will only continue to grow as technology continues to advance and consumers continue to consume. Be prepared so you can seize this opportunity to make money from the comfort of home.

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How I Got $500 from Amazon Over the Weekend

If you sell with Amazon's FBA program, do you ever feel like something is missing? Maybe you should be seeing bigger payouts based on the amount of inventory you are sending in? Me, too. I decided to do some snooping around last weekend and discovered quite a bit of inventory was either lost, damaged, or had been destroyed without my knowledge.

On April 5, I opened about 20 support tickets with Amazon for further investigation. Many of these items had been sent in as long as 3 months ago but fell through the cracks for various reasons. Here is a screen shot of some of my support requests:

In just a few hours, the reimbursements started coming in! As of today, April 10 , I have received $545.61 in reimbursements on items that Amazon would not have reimbursed me for if I hadn't brought it to their attention. Take a look at what I have received so far:

 

This process only took about 2 hours and I have received over $500 in reimbursements so far (some tickets are still outstanding). Not a bad hourly rate to put some extra cash in my account - cash that I was due but probably wouldn't have ever seen if I hadn't researched it myself.

Sometimes, we get so focused on scouting for inventory, sending in shipments, and keeping up with replenishments, we lose track of what has already been sent into Amazon warehouses. If you are not keeping a close eye on your Amazon business, it can get away from you in a hurry.

I have taken the time to share this process with you. If you aren't familiar with how to keep tabs on your FBA inventory, I have created a Lesson on Demand to show you the exact process for researching lost, damaged, or destroyed inventory that you could be getting reimbursed for. Remember, when Amazon is at fault and loses or damages inventory, you are reimbursed the same as if your item sold, not just the price you paid for the item.

This lesson includes a 20 minute video showing:

How to determine if inventory is missing.

How to use different reports to discover lost, damaged, or destroyed inventory.

How to navigate the Amazon Seller Dashboard to find information needed for support requests.

How to file Amazon FBA support requests for lost, damaged, or destroyed inventory.

8 step process I use to get money back from Amazon.

Also includes PDF file with reimbursement request process outlined.

The cost of this lesson is $19.95 and is an instant download. You will be redirected to e-Junkie to make the purchase. Learn how to research your own Amazon FBA inventory and start filing for reimbursements today!

Related articles:

Amazon Recipe for Success - Learn How to Sell on Amazon

Make Money on Amazon Selling Toys

Make Money on Amazon Selling Books

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New Multi-Media Lesson - How to Make Money on Amazon Selling Toys

Did you miss out on selling toys on Amazon during the holiday season 2012? Is the toy category overwhelming for you, maybe because you don't have children at home anymore and you are out of the loop, or you have never sold toys before? Now is the time to start learning about selling toys on Amazon so you can have the experience you need to make some extra cash during the 2013 holiday season.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I spread myself pretty thin doing many different types of online ventures. I spend about 10 hours a week on my Amazon business, with pretty good results for my efforts. I am all about using time efficiently, using money efficiently, and doing things differently than everyone else. I was thrilled to receive this Amazon Top 25% Award Certificate last month for my sales on Amazon during the 2012 holiday selling season.

In addition, here are my Amazon stats for 4th quarter 2012. I'll be the first to admit that there are many sellers who saw much higher numbers for Q4, but this is pretty good money for putting in 10 hours a week.

Now is the time to get started learning about selling toys on Amazon if you missed out during the last holiday season, or you want to increase your knowledge of selling toys on Amazon. You have plenty of time to learn the toy business and put your new found knowledge into practice this summer and stock up on toys to sell during Q4. My new course, How to Make Money Selling Toys on Amazon contains the following:

1 hour of audio (MP3) with strategies for finding toys, scouting tips, strategies for moving away from the herd of other sellers, how to make more money than your competitors, and problems to avoid (learn from my mistakes!). Audio can be downloaded to mobile device or CD for convenient listening.

30 minutes of video showing you how to research toys online, free resources for learning about top selling toys, tips for using free mobile apps to help save you time and money when sourcing, and creative ways to use eBay to find toys you can flip on Amazon for profit.

18 page supplementary document with 15 toy sourcing tips.

Flow chart that you can take with you when scouting to help you navigate the decision-making process when looking for inventory to find.

(This course is NOT a list of toys to sell - it is a multi-media lesson that teaches you the skills for finding and identifying toys that will perform well on Amazon, and you can use these skills much longer and more effectively than you could use a list of specific items to sell.)

This course is designed for sellers who have some experience selling on Amazon and have sent in a few shipments of products to FBA. If you don't have any experience selling on Amazon, start with my FBA Recipe for Success, then graduate to this course once you have sent in a few shipments and know the Amazon landscape.

Introductory price of this course is $29.97 and Online Selling Coach Members can receive a 25% discount (code has been posted on the site). The course is an instant download. Read the full details about the course at the link below, and get started selling toys on Amazon now!

How to Make Money Selling Toys on Amazon

This course is part of my new library of tutorials for online sellers called Lessons on Demand. Stay tuned for more multi-media lessons to learn more about eBay, Amazon, blogging, writing and selling Kindle books, and much more!

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eBay and Amazon Workshop Updates

Last fall, my eBay and Amazon on-site mentoring workshops were a big hit! I was able to hold 6 workshops before the holiday rush began. After a busy January and February, workshops can now resume!

I've paid attention to feedback from clients who attended the workshops last year, and want to offer what clients are requesting so that I can better help them achieve their goals. I have made some changes to make the workshops more convenient and the topics are more beneficial to the individual attendees. If you want to take your eBay or Amazon business to the next level, hiring an expert to personally show you the ropes and teach you the business based on their perspective and experience will save you time, money, frustration, and your business will succeed faster with fewer problems and setbacks. Hiring an expert to hold your hand and guide you through the minefields will put you on the fast track to success and you can jump into your business much further along the learning curve than if you had to learn the process on your own. I have been coaching clients in person and over the phone since 2009 and have coached over 350 clients worldwide.

Changes to workshops include:

Workshops are now private one-on-one training tailored to the unique needs of the individual participant. Each workshop is designed to accommodate either 1 client alone, or 2 clients working together as a team such as spouses, mother-daughter team, or business partners. Information presented will be customized to the individual clients' skill level, experience, business style, and goals.

Workshops are scheduled at the client's convenience, evenings and weekends included. Scheduling is very flexible based on the client's availability.

Amazon FBA sourcing workshop can be taught at the store of the client's preference such as Wal-Mart, Target, grocery store, TJ Maxx, Walgreen's, etc.

All workshops are held in the Metro Atlanta area and length is 3 hours of intense individual instruction based on the client's unique needs and goals.

Each workshops comes with bonuses including 1 week of email support following the workshop, eBooks, and 3 months free subscription to my membership site Online Selling Coach.

For more information on both types of workshops, and to submit your request for this highly-specialized individual training, visit my website:

eBay Sourcing Workshop

Amazon FBA Sourcing Workshop

If you have questions about the workshops, send me an email at eBaysellingcoach @ gmail or ebaycoach @ yahoo to discuss further.

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