Customer Reviews

Amazon.com For Dummies

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My friend sent this book to me because they know how much I order from amazon - last count it was over 1400 items in a little over two years. I send gifts around the world from amazon, love their gift certificates, am an amazon associate for my website. So they thought it was a cute gift. The book is very well done, and tells you all about the ins and out of many of the amazon features, but....all this information is already here on the amazon website - FREE.

Why would someone pay for a book that is slightly, ripping off amazon's own words? Oh, well, as the commercial review said, they have arrived...

This book has proven to be such a valuable asset to success in online business. I wish I would have had this years ago. it is very easy to understand, and in the classic dummies book fashion, gives you the info in a way that allows you to go back and forth like the best reference books. A must!

I bought this book as a gift for my grandma because she wants to do more online than email and read her newspaper, but when she went to Amazon.com the first time she had an anxiety attack and needed me to come over to help her. I don't have time to deal with this stuff, so I bought her the book.

But before I drove it over to her house I took a quick look. I must say, what I didn't know about Amazon was a lot. I do a lot of checking out reviews for products before I buy them and take a look at favorites lists (which I think is called listmania) and I thought that was all there was to it. The book, though, goes into the whole selling side of Amazon. It talks about Zshops, auctions and Advantage. The coolest thing, though, that I found in the book was this thing called Associates which is basically a referral program. You link products from your site and Amazon pays you a percentage of sales. There's a blurb in there about a gift site that doesn't sell anything but just provides info and recommendations and stuff and links from these products to Amazon. This site makes approximately $30,000 dollars a month in referral payments from Amazon. This got my wife and I scheming on how we could get in on this. I have web development skills. I can do this. Maybe then I can quit my day job.

A cool book all around.

I know Amazon is the best place to check out new and used books to buy and give. But apparently there's so much more. This informative, funny, intelligently written guide to Amazon.Com is especially a must read for anyone thinking about opening an internet storefront.

Why write a book about Amazon when all the info is on the website, you all ask? It's simple: to provide a hard-copy ready reference, and this book COVERS IT ALL. Everything dealing with both sides (buyer/seller) is here. Also is excellent for those new to the online-shopping experience. A crucial book, and a top-floor volume in the Dummies series.

I should have read this book first and avoided alot of problems THANK-YOU ILS.jess

This is insane. All this material is covered on the Amazon web site already. Why would anyone buy a book to learn how to shop a website that's designed to be so user friendly? And why would someone write a book about it?

Amazon seems to have a lot of zombies wandering around. So many people jumping around screaming at one another about subjects they know nothing about. People that think Modest Mouse is the next Beatles, then of course everyone raving about Al Gore's new movie. The puppets dance and the crowd cheers for more as their marionette strings bob up and down. They scream when you question their intelligence and they cry when you make them realize that the Da Vinci code, and broke Back Mountain are fictional tales and not some kind of in your face "movement". What they need is a primer to help better guide the strings with. This book is a tool that they can use for that!!!

This book pretty thoroughly covers how to use the Amazon.com website, step by step. It includes information on how to look for products, purchase products, manage your account, and how to sell things on Amazon...as of 2004. The site has changed significantly since then. Quite a few things have been added to the site (like digital downloads), while others have been removed (like auctions). While the basic concepts usually are the same, the way the site looks is different, and the screen shots in the book typically are out of date.

Furthermore, this book really doesn't go into any more detail than Amazon's own free help text can provide online. It's just presented in the form of a book. It doesn't contain any secrets about how to launch a successful business selling products on Amazon, it merely explains the mechanics of listing items for sale (again, as of 2004).

Long story short: if you are capable of purchasing this book from Amazon, you probably don't need to read it.

I guess if you just got online and knew nothing at all that this might be of help. But, if you are somewhat experienced and seeking deep and substantive information, this is of little help. The illustrations may require a magnifying glass. The bottom line: this is pretty superficial, and certainly appropriately titled.