PrestaShop + Amazon Experience anyone?

[kwok3d]

What's your opinion on selling on Amazon (buying their $2xx Amazon Market Place Module). Is the whole thing worth it?

 

Also I'm planning on self-fulfilling but interested in FBA. Ideally, it would be nice to keep my storefront while outsourcing ff to Amazon, is this even possible?

 

Thank you in adv.

[Gabriel Perez]

I'll be honest.

The module will give you a lot of problems, but it works.

[Naldinho]

No comment on the module but selling on Amazon is something that you need to go into with the full knowledge that you are selling to Amazon's customers and so Amazon will happily throw you under the bus when one of their spoiled customers acts out.

Personally we have been doing it for almost two years -- no module just manually created products. We have a decent amount of sales but given the customer base being troublesome, Amazon's fees, and generally that for a major technology company their system is dated, too complex, and somewhat broken we would have quit a long time ago except that as a manufacturer we get people coming from Amazon to the online store so it works as free advertising. If we were just reselling other brands's goods we'd have pull out of Amazon a long time ago.

[kwok3d]

Thank you so much for sharing. This REALLY helps. I thought we have to use the module in order to connect listing between the two. We are expecting high fees from Amazon but plan on listing just a few product or fewer qty but taking advantage of the advertising and bring customer back to our own online store, where we be offering discount/free gift etc.

 

 

No comment on the module but selling on Amazon is something that you need to go into with the full knowledge that you are selling to Amazon's customers and so Amazon will happily throw you under the bus when one of their spoiled customers acts out.

Personally we have been doing it for almost two years -- no module just manually created products. We have a decent amount of sales but given the customer base being troublesome, Amazon's fees, and generally that for a major technology company their system is dated, too complex, and somewhat broken we would have quit a long time ago except that as a manufacturer we get people coming from Amazon to the online store so it works as free advertising. If we were just reselling other brands's goods we'd have pull out of Amazon a long time ago.

[Naldinho]

In that case do you really need a module? Setting up products in Amazon is harder than it should be but not actually all that difficult. I'd just set the products up using the Amazon backoffice. They have CSV file upload system but learning that was more work than just manually setting up 40 products so I didn't bother.

Amazon terms of service forbid any direct attempts to get customers to buy from you directly. We get away with it because as a manufacturer our brand name is on the product packaging, it is our account name, it is on various collateral we ship with the product. It violates the terms and Amazon will close your account if you contact a customer specifically for the intent of getting them to buy from your store -- so much so that all correspondence happens via Amazon's e-mail system so you don't actually get the customer's real e-mail. Using google to find out the customers real e-mail to add to any future marketing is not something Amazon can track but if a customer complained you'd get in trouble.


The biggest issue I have with Amazon is that you are giving up control over returns / refunds to Amazon who always screws over the merchant by siding with the customer. Most transactions happen without a hitch but you'll get returners / scammers and depending on the product category it could be a lot. I wouldn't go near selling electronics for example -- read the Amazon forum and it seems like multiple times a day a vendor is getting ripped off and Amazon sides with the customer. In our product category we don't have many of these issues but ever few months we have one. For example a few weeks ago someone bout $1000 in product and paid $200 for express shipping. We interrupted production to make their items and paid more than $200 to ship it. The customer upon getting the items requested returning them claiming not as described -- the description is accurate and there isn't anyway to misunderstand. They picked that reason because if they just don't want the product then we have to accept it back but they have to pay for shipping and we don't refund the shipping. Not as described though we have to pay for return shipping and refund the original shipping. I've refused to authorize the return unless they change the reason for return or unless they explain how the product description isn't accurate. They have no responded in two weeks. I expect they will file an A-Z claim or a chargeback in which case almost always Amazon will side with the customer and refund their money plus allow them to keep the products. This isn't frequent for us -- every few months but for some product categories it is much more prevalent. I don't like giving up that kind of control to Amazon

[kwok3d]

I’m definitely skipping the $200 amazon module now that I know I can manually create listing. Some of my listing will be for marketplace but the major ones at my own branded item. Therefore I will have them listed as exclusive items. I only carry one major item but it has 3 different models (from $120-170 each), I do have related accessories but there be less than 5 of them. I doubt I will need to use the CSV at this stage.

I’m sort of doing the same thing here. My brand is my company name, which translate to my website address. The website (store) address also printed on the product. I have several ideas as far as drawing customers to my site. First the obvious branding printed on the product, 2^nd I offer warrant (of extended w.)  but required to reg on my site, 3^rd Free gift if they fill out a survey? (this might be a violation), last – my current pending idea is to attach QR tag to the product (for lost-n-found), so user must visit my site to activate the feature. Now if the price is 5-10% lower than Amazon, I’m sure customer would consider going thru my store. Either way, both of them are fulfill by Amazon. The differences is I’m paying total 10-15% fees instead of 30% (shipping+amazon fees).

I totally feel for you as far as giving up control to amazon. This is one of my concern as well. My products price around $150 avg as new and I have read stories from sellers that sometimes they receives empty box returns, damage items, different products. I did eBay 10 years ago and had people who received items and did a charge back. It drives me mad but it was only a $20 item. Now that I’m selling $150 worth of stuff, it makes me worry.

Anyway, thank you so much again for sharing. It’s so hard to find someone who is in similar situation and willing to share.