Amazon GLitch AOB down for the umteenth time.

Well, title says it all–I can quit AOB, and plan on it–they used to send out e-mails when shit happened, now they don’t say anything and just hope that their users were offline at the time they went down. Seriously for the past 2 years, Communication at AOB sucks. I float better than most because I am computer savy–it’s really the outages that seem to happen once a month or so, with no explanation whatsoever that frustrate the HELL out of me–I mean, they don’t even tell you if the problem was fixed–or if perhaps it is just a regular maint. thing that they do. They don’t even bother to state if the problem is just front end and orders are getting pulled from all venues–or if it affects the back end too. There are other companies that do what AOB does–and they communicate better-it will be worth the extra money a month for that.

I mean I went to work all day–and still no message on their forums, or anywhere that I can find about what happened.  What am I supposed to do?  Start a ticket?  Ask them what the hell is wrong with their site?  I should be the one to go out of my way to type a ticket to them that they might answer with any kind of useful information? Instead of the company contacting it’s customers?  Hello?  Asellertool sends me e-mails all the time, Scout Pal used too. . . I’ve also recieved some e-mails from ALibris in the past year.

And also, How many of us are there?  1000?  Should we all start tickets?  That seems like a waste of AOB’s time to reply to everyone on an individual basis.  I’ll stick to my guns : They don’t post because they don’t want people who didn’t happen to try and use AOB in the Wee hours last night to know what was going on.

However, I cannot quit Amazon, only work around their crazy glitchdom.

People need sleep, ya know?

A book order via Abebooks/Paypal came in at 6 AM. . .
Buyer then sends e-mails at 6:30 and 6:45 requesting invoices. . .

Well hello?  Some people sleep until 9 or so and don’t even open up shop until 10 AM.

Yes, sales still are in the pooper

I havent  been around  because of a vacation, and an unhealthy obsession with anything to do with this election.

Rest assured, sales still suck.  Yes, I am selling stuff and doing better than others, but, in the past 2 months my sales have dropped about 40%.  Every trick I know to make sales happen, has probably only had the affect of limiting the drop in sales, instead of bringing me up to the norm of the past 7 or 8 years.

Not to mention the absolute lowballing going on.  $20 books with sellers droping to $5 almost over night–and no, I’m not going to spend $9 to make $8.

Ok, well here is hoping for the best on Tuesday, everyone go out and vote, and be prepared to stand in line and prove your ID if you have to.

Can Abebooks Please get their Act Together?

I’m still getting dbl sales on Abebooks from their whole, “oops, we accidently listed some books twice”  glitch.  And now, despite getting e-mails from ABE, I CAN’T log into my account–it says that my e-mail doesn’t exist.

Heck, i can’t even log into the bookseller forum to cut and paste the Abebooks notices about the dbl listing problems of a few weeks ago, the delayed upload problems of a couple weeks ago, and I can’t even log in to see if they actually ever fixed these problems, and check for status messages.  If I didn’t have a 3rd party management program, I’d be screwed as fas as getting my orders and confirming them.

And don’t even get my started about how Ridiculous this Presidential Election has become, can we please debate the real issues like the economy?  Job Loss? Creating New Jobs? Health Care? The Deficit?  IRAQ & IRAN & Afghanistan solutions?

Horibble Ebay Glitch / Bug -Clicking Listing Links = Purchase?

I was shopping on Ebay from a seller whom I knew I was going to buy from. I clicked the link to a listing in their store and it automatically said that I had purchased the item–went straight to “pay Now” displayed on the page. So I thought, ” Well maybe I clicked on the buy it now logo” so I clicked a 2nd listing link from the same company, and it also went straight to “Pay Now.”

It’s been 5 mins and the items are not showing up in my “won” list on Ebay, nor have I received all the auto e-mails.  We’ll see.

Now Half.com is Wonky : Closing Listings- Plus Amazon Wonkiness continued

I just received a notice from Half.com saying they closed 3 of my listings for incorrect binding. On Half.com they show as Hardcover, but these are Small Press Poetry books that have never had a hardcover edition–they are all First Edition softcovers with correct ISBNs.

Other sellers have been getting notices as well, only some of them can’t figure out which of the criteria they have violated, while others note the same hardcover/softcover issues. For now this is not a huge deal, but what if they had some kind of software glitch that changed the bindings on several of their listings? This would make their small catalogue even smaller. Of course, the mega sellers who don’t describe their books will still be listed.

******

Amazon is still a touch Wonky today. I expect that the prices will fall drastically as people freaking out about no sales and running their repricers over and over. I hate listing books when Amazon is like this-it’s not that I rely solely on Amazon, but that I fear their glitchdom will result in dbl sales.

*****

Oh yeah, it looks like I got to do whatever auctions I’m going to do on Ebay right quick, as things are about to change. I’ve been putting it off since the Feedback change-and I guess I’ve been a tad lazy and busy.

Things that Make me think Amazon site is wonky. . .

8 orders from abe and 10 orders from alibris in less than a 24hr period.  I don’t have a large inventory, and I’m happy to sell 1 book on Alibris a day, and a few books on Abebooks a week.

Plus newly listed stock on Amazon with best seller status that is not moving. i can see it on Amazon, it’s just not selling despite being competitvely prices and my 5 star, 4.9, 100% rating.

Now that Takes a lot of Ballz! When Book Sellers Buy From You

Booksellers know how to manipulate the system, that is if they are good, they know the rules of each site that they deal with, and know how other booksellers probably will deal with them as well.

Now the thing that pissed me off. . .

I got an order through Half.com for a 5 pd book going Priority–from another book dealer.

For those that don’t know, Half does not have an option to only offer priority mail on certain items like Amazon–it’s all or nothing, and the way I figure it is that it evens out. This book dealer could’ve ordered it on Abe where I could request xtra shipping, or Alibris where I could just cancel it with a small dent to my fulfillment rate–but they chose Half, where they could leave me a negative if I canceled, which would also affect my Ebay rating.

But wait, that is not the whole story–I was fine with that, I put the book in a Flat Rate Priority Box, and still made a tidy profit.

The next day after I ship it, I get an e-mail from the same book seller, asking me to quote them Priority Shipping for an 8 oz Mass Market book AND dealer discount. Now that takes balls. Not to mention that they wanted to do transaction off site–which could get me suspended.

Big Fat ZEROS — Daily Glitchdom on Amazon

Amazon glitches once in awhile so I’m used to it, but this week is crazy.

This is the 2nd day for me this week in which ZEROS are piling up in my Amazon inventory, but they are getting stuck in pending mode.  When I woke up this morning I had 10, a few of those have made it to the other side, but I just checked and I am still at 10 ZEROS with some new items added in. . .There is no consistency to what is making it across the finish line–ie –first one in first one out, they are random.  Of course AOB can’t pick up these orders. . .And for me deleting is just too time consuming because then I have to keep track in case some of these items have really been canceled or were just in someone’s shopping cart for a moment— I have 40 Books to ship and 3 hours to get this done–ok yeah, I’m wasting time here 🙂

Amazon buying Abebooks

I know a lot has been said about this, mostly by those sellers who do NOT sell on Amazon for various reasons.

I sell on both Amazon and Abebooks, and even though my Abe sales have been picking up, Abe is still my lowest producing venue, and one of the most expensive to list on. So my worry is not Amazon will somehow ruin Abe, although I do think that it is good to have a venue like Abe out there almost exactly as it works now.

My worry is that Abe owns Fillz, and that Amazon might make it’s 3rd party sellers who use Inventory Management services, use Fillz. I love AOB, and I do not want to use Fillz, and it’s not just the price.  I am a computer geek, and game playing fool, I used to design webistes, and the Fillz Shipping is just a clunky nightmare compared to AOB, some other Fillz features are just as clunky too.  I also still ship one book at a time instead of using bulk. One reason is that because of my location, almost every item I ship needs an individual shipping decision regarding weight and price since I don’t deal with books exclusively over $25. I know Fillz has some standard fill in stuff factoring in weight, but I actually need to know more than that when making a decision. Also, alot of my books need extra secure packaging, and they are easier for me to ship with accurate postage through the one at a time method.  And lastly though on Mondays I do all my shipping at once, during the week I try to squeeze out a few at night during chores and movies, and leveling my Bard. Last I checked one could only bulk ship on Fillz.

On the Abe side, I like being able to request extra money for shipping.  I know some of you all upgrade for free, and pay any extra amount.  But, I run a full time business, and since I buy 90% of my personal items online, I know that a scarce few stores upgrade for free–My $5000 TV did not come with a shipping break.  My $1000 laptop did not come with free shipping, My clothes are never shipped for free unless its a once a year sale.  AND as of late I have booksellers ordering INTL from me to dropship thinking that I can get screwed on the shipping instead of them.  So I really hope that Amazon does not standardize Abes shipping.