Amazon.com may be a great place to shop for items and save money or cut cost on shipping with their many offers but, as an individual seller, BEWARE. It has been actually the reverse. A RIP OFF due to an excessive expense on shipping for an item you sell! As a regular shopper, I discovered the Sell Your Stuff service that Amazon.com offers. I decided to try to make some extra money for new and unused items but, on average after year now of selling I realized that the Amazon fees that they deduct and shipping cost for a product sold, averages out to a seller losing 1/2 of the product purchase listing price. Their pitch for 'Make Money' really means 'Make Us Money' and you pay most of the cost to do so. Their Amazon fees consist of a: commission or referral fee, fixed closing fee AND variable closing fee. The referral fee ranges between 8%-15% depending on type of item being sold. I would think that the commission includes the closing and variable closing fee? And this is 2 closing fees and not just 1? This is all subtracted from the item's listed purchase price and a variable shipping credit amount is also paid to the seller to ship. The shipping fee credit that they credit normally only covers half the amount of your actual shipping cost.in addition, the shipping fee credit does not take into consideration, the size or weight of the product or from and to destination which always varies! The page to utilize this service states: "Pricing Plans. We offer two Selling on Amazon plans. Which suits your needs?" Well unfortunately I'm finding out that this price structure only suits their needs and then I'm left with most of the expense and very little profit. For example. I sold a brand new Boom Pod item (which is a gaming chair) that retails for $50.00 and weighs 16 lbs... With a listing price of $45 and Amazon.com collected a total of $9.29 in fees. Leaving me with $34 profit. They also gave me a credit of $15.49 for shipping which actually cost me $30.00 to prepare for shipping and actually ship. So I actually only profited $15.00 for an item that I originally listed for $45.00. The other catch I realized is that you must pay for all shipping cost out of pocket up front, then once you update in their system that an item has been shipped then you GET YOUR MONEY in about 5 working days. So if it takes you 2-3 days to ship your item then it's really another 8 working days from the time the item sells that you get your profit. So from my experience when it comes to selling your stuff on Amazon.com, it a rip-off for the seller to ship but, many savings for Amazon and the buyer!
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