Customer Reviews

Amazon Top Seller Secrets: Insider Tips from Amazon's Most Successful Sellers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am glad I borrowed this book from the library instead of paying $ to buy it. We have a merchant store on Amazon for 4 years. This book has not told me anything that I didn't know. I finished the book in 3 hours, granted I skimmed through a lot of it because I already knew the stuff. But it sounds more like an advertising for Amazon as it keeps talking about these sucessful Amazon sellers. Well, I wonder how many of them actually compete head on with Amazon. They talked about a seller saying that it is not a problem competing with Amazon and don't think Amazon will drive them out of business. But they don't tell you the truth!! If Amazon gets into a product, they get the buy box almost 95% of the time even if they are not the lowest price seller. Then of course the book didn't talk about how ruthless Amazon is in driving out competition, that they will match the lowest price of any seller (may be except for the book category) before shipping, instead of the overall price. We have in our experience seen Amazon sell an item cheaper than wholesale cost, and we called the supplier and verified that the price they sell to Amazon is indeed higher than what Amazon is selling at. In other words, Amazon is the 10,000 lb gorilla that will squash the competition even by losing money on the sale because Amazon can afford to. Therefore, if you are a new seller and want to get into selling on Amazon as a business, don't let this book fool you thinking that it is easy as long as you have great customer services. It also don't tell you that A-Z guarantee is always on the side of buyer no matter what form of confirmation you have. All in all, this book is for someone with no experience selling on Amazon at all. The only thing I found useful was just some tips on marketing.

As an Advantage Member on Amazon I was very eager to read this book in hopes of improving my own sales on Amazon and perhaps finding a way to sell other items on the site as well. I wasn't expecting to pick up a bandoleer of magic bullets that would transform my own marketing through Amazon, but I was pleased with what I did glean from this guide for better marketing. I'm easy to please in some ways because I was not expecting major revelations and in addition to specific techniques that I could immediately put to work, I was aiming to pick up a lot of additional background information about Amazon. Everyone reading this book will quickly understand that Amazon is growing at a geometric rate and expanding into most fields of product sales.

Much of the book dealt with businesses and web stores that are intended to be much larger than anything the reviewer is interesting in setting up. I was only interested in selling books and some art on Amazon. My goals are modest but I was pleased to find several nuggets that seemed intended just for me. Surprisingly, I found several helpful gems near the end of the book. One of the biggest surprises of the book was the advice by many of the top sellers on Amazon to use other venues to sell their products as well as Amazon. There were several lists of other venues for various products. There was also a plug for starting and learning the ropes to Internet sales through buying and selling on E-Bay. There was even a list of reasons to stay focused on E-Bay and whether it was the right time to add Amazon to the reader's selling venues.

There were many specific recommendations for high quality, inexpensive suppliers for helping web setters. One example was ULINE for most shipping and packing materials. I mention this particular example because I already knew what a great supplier that company is. It's not only one of the least expensive suppliers of shipping supplies, but it's also fast. I've never waited more than two days after placing an on-line order before the supplies arrived by UPS. They are one of those companies that epitomize good supply chain management and delivery.

As a person who is really only barely able to use the Internet and the various Social Sites, blogs, You Tube, etc., I'm always trying to expand my knowledge of what is a whole new universe for a Stone Age Man like myself. This book is written in an easy-to-understand manner with lots of helpful illustrations (most of which seemed to be reproduced too small in my opinion--the books only flaw as far as I am concerned). I solved that problem with a magnifying glass and continued to glean lots of the very helpful advice included in the tome. The book is a motivational as well as a self-help book with lots of individual success stories included throughout it.

By the time I'd finished the 306-page instruction manual, I'd dogged-eared half the pages and marked up almost every page with either my black or red ballpoint pen. This wasn't a book that I was planning to keep in perfect condition. It was the kind of reference book that the reader wants to dog-ear, highlight and mark up wherever the reader felt there was material that he or she wanted to refer to in the future. It's a workman's book. It's the best book of this kind I've read since I learned so much from "Aiming At Amazon" by Aaron Shepard, which is also an excellent volume about writing books designed primarily for sale on Amazon.

The most up-to-the-minute book about Amazon, how it works now and how you can profit by it.

Somehow, Brad and Debra Schepp got top Amazon sellers to reveal their secrets and inside tips on how to they succeed on Amazon and have shared those tips in this knowledge packed book.

Amazon, the internet's mall of America.....more like Mall of the World, is the pre-eminent internet sales vehicle on the planet. 65 million people shopped Amazon last year alone. If you are not selling on Amazon you are missing a huge market which is, for many people, the preferred way to buy things online.

Whether you want to learn how to clear out a bookshelf and sell unneeded books or open an Amazon store selling new merchandise, it's all explained in this book.

The Schepps pull back the curtain on Amazon and outline the steps in becoming a coveted "featured merchant." They further explain the importance of getting good customer feedback in the ever-important need to be highly-rated by Amazon customers.

They offer serious insider tips about how to find out what products sell by researching and monitoring Amazon's "movers and shakers" which are the top 100 most popular items in each category on Amazon. Want to see what's hot now? Visit Amazon.com/gp/movers-and-shakers/

The book covers mundane topics such as shipping, best practices, even where to get good deals on supplies. The book compares and contrasts other sales sites where one can sell things, including Craigslist, uBID, Ebay, and Google Products Search.

The Schepps even cover the top ten ezine sites in which to help drive traffic to your Amazon site. The top three are: ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and webpronews.com.

The bottom line: If you want to do business on Amazon, with Amazon, or are even remotely interested in how Amazon works, then this book is for you. This book would be extremely helpful for authors, publishers inventors and others who want to sell products because it unlocks the full power of Amazon. One should read the book first straight through, highlighting the best tactics, re-read those and then implement the top tactics discussed in the book... that's what I am doing right now. I highly recommend it.

This is a complete guide to selling on Amazom, from books to baubles. There's plenty of information here for newbies, like how to get started and choose categories to sell in. But there are also a lot of details on more advanced topics like setting prices, becoming a pro merchant, and sourcing the best products. The tips and advice here are not readily available on the Internet. In fact, because the authors spoke to so many sellers who share their secrets here for the first time, those tips are NOT on the Internet at all. I don't know what some of these other reviewers such as "Honus Wagner" (baseball great reincarnated?) are thinking when they say this information is on the site.

There's money to be made on Amazon, but it's a tough, competitive marketplace, and you need every advantage you can get to succeed. You need this book!

As a beginner in the role of seller, instead of buyer, I found this book very helpful. A good comprehensive tool for anyone who is looking to wade into the online market. Lots of hints and tips, as well as good concrete information on how to best approach online sales.

Dana

The Schepps are wonderful at writing business books that are easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to apply to your business. I think this book even tops their eBay Powerseller Secrets book series, of which I'm a big fan.

This doesn't just give you the secrets (ideas and tips) for selling on Amazon, it explains the "why" to every idea and shows exactly how each idea works.

As a long time Amazon seller myself, I found many new great ideas from this book! I found myself thinking in completely new directions and noticed a few very simple changes that increased my Amazon business.

That being said, Amazon Top Seller Secrets is not written over the heads of a new seller. It will help a new seller avoid common mistakes and grow an Amazon selling business much quickly with a solid foundation.

As an added bonus it's a book that's easily referenced. No need to read an entire chapter to find that one idea you wanted to confirm. Everything is a breeze to find.

Top notch in every regard!!!

A small business owner easily has enough work to fill 24 hrs a day and usually has little time to review sales & marketing reference materials; the only "how to improve my sales" book worth his / her time is one that synthesizes and condenses the insider secrets of the marketplace. This book is not such a work; I lost count of the number of times I glanced over the words stating something like "You need to explore this for yourself". I don't have time to explore; that's why I bought this book. Amazon's corporate algorithms for product placement in listings, featured merchant status are left a mystery; this book should have cracked that and other important Amazon mysteries. Also, technologically its out of date, referring to myspace and no mention of twitter, second life. One important error: a seller is NOT able to buy his/her own products while signed into the seller account; Amazon will remove these from your cart. This is the only tip offered regarding how to improve your ranking in the Amazon search result listings!! How does the ranking work? There is no discussion of the sponsored listings & advertising with Amazon; pricing & how effective this is. For example, how is it that Amazon doesn't let sellers of books, videos & music purchase advertising for sponsored listings and yet many providers of these services end up in Amazon sponsored listings--how does that happen? Where does Amazon take its ad feeds? How does clickriver work? Many important questions like these regarding how to increase your sales go unconsidered or answered in a most shallow manner. However, there are literally PAGES and PAGES on how to safely pack an item and many reminders on how important timely shipping is; DUH!

There may be lots of info here if you're completely new to small business, the internet, and amazon; for the semi-experienced seller with an eye to growing his/her business there is little of value that you don't already know.

Having read this book I must say it was not as expected. There were few if any "secrets" of top sellers. If you are looking for an advanced book being familiar with selling online, either Ebay or Amazon, etc. then this is not it!

However, there are always things to pick up in any book so if you don't mind spending the money to earn more back in ideas, you can't go wrong.

Overall, it is a good book for beginners wanting to sell on Amazon. You will learn about shipping methods and general ideas about selling with some software ideas and thoughts about data feeds. Do not think you will get insider secrets however.

Doc Roberts, President, Skiboards Superstore, Inc.

The content available in this book seems dated. Most of the info can be found for free on Amazon's site. It does compile the content in one location, but if you are looking for insight I think this book falls short.

It tells things a beginner would need to get started. The authors come from ebay selling background so they give some comparison between the two marketplaces. I have found it interesting. It told me something I haven't known by poking around amazon by myself.