I can see the value - but it's not worth the risk... to me.
Written: Jan 10 '08 (Updated Jan 10 '08)
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I've been using the internet since day-one, and the way I see it - Amazon is the single best place to buy new stuff.
Sellers
There's two kinds of sellers on Amazon - actual retailers who are in business to do business, and who use Amazon as one of their outlets for their products. I trust those guys. They ship on-time, every time - and have very liberal return policies if you develop a case of buyer's remorse. Then there's the guys like me - individuals who are selling junk out of their junk drawers and storage bins.
I have a closet full of expensive junk that I simply cannot bring myself to throw away. And forget about giving it away - that's how I ended up with a lot of the stuff - so I can't unload it on my friends, either. Enter Amazon.com.
By listing this junk on Amazon, I suddenly find myself with a couple of hundred extra dollars in my checking account. Whoops! One guy bought a router because (you're going to laugh at this one) it's not one he already has in his collection. He even emailed me to get the id of a chipset on the router to make sure it's the one he doesn't have. Weird? Yes - but his money was very, very green.
ISBN/UPC - the Magic Number in US Commerce
If you have a UPC or ISBN for whatever it is you're trying to sell - you can sell it on Amazon. And if it's something you made yourself - like hand-crafts or bulk agricultural products - there are services out there that will sell you your own ISBN's and UPC's for about $200 each. (That's pretty cool.)
In the course of discovering this numerology, it occurs to me that this number is a magic profit-maker in US commerce - especially in the case of media like audio, video and print. Once you buy an ISBN to go with your creative content - it can be marketed anywhere and everywhere - not just Amazon. Every printer; every publisher; every retailer everywhere can just press and sell and send you a royalty.
Spam, predators and abuse
Over the last decade or so, I've been exposed to the concept of micro-celebrity. My political rants developed a little following that grew to be a couple of hundred - some of whom began confusing reality with virtuality. Vandalized property ensued.
This is something I should have considered when opening up a shop on Amazon. One of these little jerks decided to buy stuff and return it - just to mess with me. By the time I figured out what happened, I had spent cash that should have been refunded. Whoops!
This left me with two choices - gather the cash to refund to him from elsewhere, or shut down my Amazon account. Since it was just an experiment anyway, and not my livelihood, I went ahead and shut down the account. For me - it just wasn't worth being exposed to harassment.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Seller Services
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Epinions.com ID:
bvckvs
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Member: Sanders Kaufman
Location: Dallas, TX, US
Reviews written: 155
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Web Developer, Guitarist, Author, Journalist
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