Introduction
About a month ago, when I started to sell on Amazon, I wanted to test the differences between Amazon Marketplace vs Amazon FBA. The quick difference between the 2 is that Marketplace is similar to Ebay in that you keep the item at your house and you ship directly to the customer when they buy it and you deal with all the customer service issues. Anyway, I sold 3 heavy 30lb Dysons via Marketplace, and of course all 3 people lived on the East coast, thus costing me nearly $40 each to ship.
Return #1
About a week after my first sale, the buyer emailed me saying the Dyson was harder to turn than their old Dyson, and so wanted to return it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Since it was not my fault, the buyer has to pay the return shipping costs. And since Amazon has a generous return policy, I pretty much had to take it back. So I basically lost $40 on that deal.
Return #2
Then this past Saturday, buyer #2 emailed me saying the hose attachment was too hard to attach and detach. She was 2 days away from the 30 day return policy of course! At first, she sent her message as a “Return Policy Inquiry.” I told her since it was not my fault, she would have to pay the return shipping. Then she replied saying it was a defect in the item and to reconsider her liability. I let this email sit for about 4 hours. At that point, she then sent the same message as a “Inquiry: Received damaged or defective item.” AARRRRGGHHH! Are you kidding me? Clearly she’s trying to claim this as a broken item to get ME to pay for the return shipping. The weird thing was that she never tried to process an official return request (I don’t know why that is because buyer #1 did that, and all I had to do was hit Approve.)
Anyway, I replied to her again saying that I’ve lost $40 on shipping fees already and now my NEW Dyson is USED. I am not eating another $40 when it’s a manufacturer’s defect. She reluctantly agreed to check on shipping charges back to me, but I had told her already it was going to be $40+. Then she tells me she left the box outside and it got wet, and that I should know this before accepting the return. FML!!! I then had a great idea of sending her the receipt, having her return it to the retailer, and mailing me the merch credit. Unfortunately for me, she lives in Key West, FL and at least she was good spirited in her reply of, “I live closer to Cuba than to Kohl’s.”
Next Steps
So now I’m just waiting for her to send it back to me. Then I’ll have to return it back to Kohl’s and once again, eat another $40 of shipping. That’s 2 out of 3 returns! UNBELIEVABLE! I must have sold over 100 Dysons/Roombas on eBay and never once had a return due to “buyer’s remorse” type reasons. I don’t understand how people can buy big items like that before knowing how the item works. I think people just assume that since it’s Amazon, they’ll get free returns for 30 days. I don’t think people have fully understood the difference between Marketplace and FBA. If this was through FBA, Amazon would eat the shipping cost back to Amazon and then $0.50 back to me. If this had been a small item, I would have easily paid $5 for return shipping just to get her off my back. Plus, it stressed me out on a perfectly good Seattle Saturday. Moral of story – don’t sell big heavy items on Amazon Marketplace. Sell on eBay where you can state NO RETURNS or sell it on Amazon FBA so they can deal with these customers directly and you lose less on shipping fees (~$10 to Amazon warehouse.)
🙁 Sorry to hear about your finicky Amazon buyers…thanks for sharing this comparison between eBay, Amazon Marketplace, and Amazon FBA though! I haven’t tried out FBA yet due to the higher fees (I’m trying to sell my own unused junk, not reselling for profit, so every dollar I can recuperate is appreciated!).
If you are reselling unused junk, I’d use eBay. The fees for Amazon FBA is similar to Marketplace once you factor in the shipping cost differences. I hope to write up a more thorough review later.
Oops sorry by unused junk I meant stuff I’m not currently using anymore…i.e. things I bought because they were cool and used once or twice and then never again. Most things I sell are not brand new but are like-new and usually with original box since I’m a hoarder. 😛
I usually list in both places and remove as soon as one is sold…Amazon seems to sell much faster and for higher prices in my limited experience (but I can’t sell in the restricted categories which sucks), but would definitely like to see your thorough comparison sometime. As a frequent buyer it makes sense that things sell more easily on Amazon…I like how on Amazon you search for the item and it has its own dedicated page that then shows you who’s selling it vs. on eBay you search for stuff and you just get a hodgepodge of results.