Amazon Wants Sellers

[mandy]

There is a perception that Amazon.com is for selling books and media products through the Amazon Marketplace. But Amazon has a number of different programs for sellers in many categories, including Jewelry & Watches and Apparel, and it has over 1.3 million active seller accounts. In addition, Webstore by Amazon lets sellers create their own branded ecommerce sites.

But we wondered whether Amazon had a place for merchants who offered a more eclectic selection of inventory. Does Amazon.com want sellers of antiques and collectibles on its site? Does Amazon.com want "eBay sellers"?...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y208...bu0209/s02

[mandy]

A related article on Amazon category restrictions:

This may be a good place to remind readers that Amazon retains tight control even in "open" categories: for example, each year, Amazon.com restricts third-party sales in the Toys and Games category to pre-approved sellers during the holiday shopping season.

And another caveat: during the ChannelAdvisor conference last year, an analyst warned sellers of the dangers of listing on a marketplace that could turn around and compete with them, specifically pointing to Amazon.com...

full article: http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blo...69425.html

[mandy]

Part 2 of the article:

Part 2 of the interview follows and covers Webstore by Amazon, a solution that lets sellers create their own branded ecommerce sites, and Amazon's latest offering, Product Ads...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m02/i22/s02

[mandy]

more:

Williams said Amazon has category managers who look at the brand of the seller and the quality of the items they sell - including on the merchant's own website. And if they are already a seller on Amazon, they have a lot of information, he said, including buyer interest...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m03/i05/s02

[mandy]

A related article on selling on Amazon.com:

In today's issue, we bring you Amazon's answers to questions we commonly hear from online sellers who are considering - or are already - selling on "the river." Questions range from category restrictions to trust-and-safety concerns...

Q: There is rumor that Amazon may move Pro Merchants to the Merchants@ program. Is that true, and what exactly would that mean for Pro Merchants?

A: Our early adoption program for FBA has entailed a number of sellers being moved to the M@ program. The M@ program is a scaled and proven technology already used by some of the largest merchants on Amazon selling in non-media product categories. We will be shortly discontinuing this process as we will be able to offer FBA directly to sellers in their Marketplace Seller Account. We plan to offer the most compelling features we've developed for the M@ program to Marketplace Pro Merchants such that there will be no difference between the two.....

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y208...bu0217/s02